


I'll cross this country on a frequency

by illusemywords



Series: Criminal Minds!AU [2]
Category: Criminal Minds, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Werewolves, Canon-Typical Violence, Criminal Minds!AU, Emotional Manipulation, Endgame Sterek, Gunshot Wounds, Hacker Stiles Stilinski, Hospitals, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Jealous Derek Hale, Kidnapping, M/M, Minor Character Death, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Panic Attacks, Psychological Torture, Serial Killers, Slow Build Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Stalking, Threats of Violence, Threats of torture, cannibalism mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 15:18:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 53,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6084612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illusemywords/pseuds/illusemywords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Stiles, I need you to run a license plate for me.”</p><p>“Whatever you need, babe.”</p><p>“Don’t call me babe.”</p><p>“Stop being such a sourwolf, just tell me the numbers.”</p><p>or</p><p>The one where there's a serial killer on the loose, Stiles Stilinski has a stalker and Derek Hale doesn't know how to express his emotions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [I'll cross this country on a frequency](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13868148) by [LonelyLikeACastaway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LonelyLikeACastaway/pseuds/LonelyLikeACastaway)



> Welcome to my new Criminal Minds crossover fic! 
> 
> You don't need to have seen Criminal Minds to read this, but if you are familiar with the Boston Reaper storyline you'll recognize that, though I have changed quite a few plot points to fit my story. It is also not necessary to read the prequel that is already posted, though it does explain how Stiles joined the BAU, so if you're interested in that I recommend you read it.
> 
> The title is taken from the Jack's Mannequin song Into The Airwaves.
> 
> I'll add tags, warnings and characters as I post new chapters, but let me know if there's something you want me to tag. I'll probably update once or twice a week until it's finished. 
> 
> Please note that this contains canon-typical violence for both Criminal Minds and Teen Wolf. If you are uncomfortable with shows that describe people being murdered and the m.o. of serial killers, this may not be fic for you.
> 
> I'd like to thank my amazing beta, [congotsja](http://archiveofourown.org/users/congotsja/pseuds/congotsja/). I couldn't have done this without her!
> 
> I have tried to make sure the characters keep as much of their original personalities as possible, but if you're curious as to who I imagined them as on Criminal Minds, this is the character list:  
> Alan Deaton - Aaron Hotchner  
> Scott Mccall - David Rossi  
> Kira Yukimura - Jennifer Jareau  
> Lydia Martin - Spencer Reid  
> Derek Hale - Derek Morgan  
> Stiles Stilinski - Penelope Garcia  
> Erica Reyes - Emily Prentiss

“Stiles, I need you to run a license plate for me.”

“Whatever you need, babe.”

“Don’t call me babe.”

“Stop being such a sourwolf, just tell me the numbers.”

“One Three Eight Alpha Delta Moon”

“Got it, that’s a white van – wow, really, could this guy be any more of a pedophile? – yeah, yeah, Derek, I know, stick to the facts. It’s a white van registered to Matt Daehler, owner of a small photography business. From their website it looks like they mostly do children’s portraits and family pictures, so nothing really special there.”

“Fits with the profile. This could easily be how he’s been selecting his victims and –” Derek faltered.

“Derek? What’s up?” Stiles urged, curious to hear what had his colleague was thinking.

“Hold on, Stiles, I just need to check something.” Derek said into the phone. “Hey, Martin, do you have the crime scene photos? Did the other victims have professionally taken family photos? Or pictures of their kids taken in a studio?”

Stiles waited impatiently while Derek confirmed his thoughts. “I’ll call you back, Stiles, but keep looking. We may be on to something here.”

Holding back a huff of annoyance, Stiles went back to work, starting a background check on this Daehler guy. If he really was the unsub, he probably wouldn’t be easy to track down.

Just as he was about to call Lydia to let her know what he had found, Derek called him back. “Hey, babe, what’s up?” Stiles asked, not bothering to stop typing as he spoke.

“All the families had pictures taken professionally, could you check if Matt Daehler was the one to take them?” Derek said, not even commenting on the nickname. Usually when he got like this, they were close to a break in the case.

“Will do, sweet cheeks, I’ll get back to you,” Stiles said, letting his programs finish gathering info on Daehler while Stiles himself filtered through calendars, e-mails and credit cards to find out if any of the victims had been in contact with Daehler or his company. As it turned out, they all had appointments with Matt Daehler photography, and had gotten their pictures taken there.

Stiles absentmindedly called Derek back to let him know. “Hey, Derek, you were right, looks like they all had their pictures taken by Matt Daehler photography. He’s got to be our unsub. This is how he’s been choosing which boys to take.”

“Thanks, Stiles, I’ll let you know once we know more. In the meantime, can you try to pinpoint Matt Daehler’s location? We’re going to need to bring him in for questioning, but it seems very likely that he could be our guy.”

Three hours later, Matt Daehler was in custody, being questioned about his whereabouts on the nights of the abductions. He claimed to have been home alone, editing pictures, on the nights in question, but had no way to actually verify his alibi.

After a quick search of his apartment the team found great amounts of child pornography, including pictures of the three abducted children. Shortly after that, Stiles was told, Matt Daehler confessed to the kidnapping of three ten-year-old boys. He confessed that he had taken pictures of them, but denied touching any of the boys in a sexual manner. They were all found locked up in separate parts of a warehouse Daehler had rented, cold and hungry but otherwise physically fine. They were returned to grateful families and before Stiles knew it, the team were on their way to the airport.

“Have a safe flight, lovelies,” Stiles said as they were about to take off, hanging up and leaving his office to get a fresh cup of coffee. There were few times Stiles felt better than after having successfully caught one of the bad guys. He felt especially good knowing that none of the missing children were harmed, and that they were safe with their families. It was the kind of feeling Stiles used to get when exposing injustice through his hacking, but he had discovered that working for the FBI, while he had been reluctant at first, was even better.

He knew he had to stay and wait for the team, but honestly, Stiles couldn’t wait to get back to his apartment to get some sleep. The last 72 hours had been crazy, and he, as well as the rest of the team, had barely slept.

When they came back to the office, they all greeted Stiles before heading to their respective desks and offices to write up their reports. Stiles lingered on the main floor, reluctant to go back to his small office. He was often like this after his team had finished a case, no matter how little danger they had been in. Stiles was a very physical person, and he needed to be close to the people he cared about. Especially in their line of work.

A few hours later though, most of the team were finishing up and getting ready to head home. Before they could actually leave though, Deaton, Scott and Kira excited Deaton’s office, faces grim.

“Uh oh,” Stiles heard Erica mutter. “I know that look.”

And sure enough, they were headed towards them. “I’m afraid you can’t go home quite yet, guys,” Kira said somberly. “We won’t keep you too long, but we’ve just gotten some news that we need to tell you about right away. We’ll meet in the conference room in ten.”

Stiles stared around the office, confused, trying to see if any of the other agents knew what was going on, but Derek, Erica and Lydia all looked just as confused as Stiles felt.

Stiles was usually briefed on these things before everyone else, since he had taken over as communications liaison from Kira three years earlier when she left the unit for about a year to be liaison for pentagon, before returning to the team after completing the necessary extra education to become a full fledged agent. Stiles had had some trouble getting used to his new responsibilities at first, trying to do two jobs at once, but he had gotten the hang of it after a few cases and some valuable advice from Deaton.

This time though, he would learn the details about the case at the same time as everyone else did. Ten minutes later, they were all gathered around the conference table, waiting to find out what was so important it couldn’t wait until the next morning.

Deaton stood at the front of the room, waiting until he had everyone’s attention before he started to talk. “A few weeks ago, it was brought to my attention that a couple – Kara Simmons and Tucker Cornish – were murdered in their car just outside of Boston, Massachusetts. The unsub hit Harvey with a tire iron, knocking him unconscious, before slashing Cape’s throat. At this point, it seems like Harvey regained consciousness, and that was when the unsub shot him in the head. He then proceeded to stab Cape 46 times. This –” Deaton paused to press the remote and bring up the crime scene photos, zooming in on a picture of a pair of glasses. Stiles heard Lydia gasp softly next to him, and he knew she knew what this was about. Deaton continued as if he hadn’t heard anything. “was left at the crime scene.”  

Stiles frowned, wracking his brain for any way the glasses might be connected to a case they had worked on previously. He came up with nothing. Deaton continued speaking.

“Tonight, we got the call that another, elderly couple – Garrison and Diane Meyers – were murdered, also in their car on the outskirts of Boston. The unsub left Nina Cape’s watch at the scene. This m.o. is something we haven’t seen in a long time. None of us were on this team yet, and most of you were barely even walking and talking. The unsub I’m talking about is of course –“

“The Boston Reaper,” Lydia said softly, not keeping the wonder from her voice, and Deaton nodded. “He killed a total of 20 victims during the three-year period of 1979 to 1981, alternating between shooting and stabbing his victims. One of the victims, Emily Calder, had her throat slashed and was stabbed a total of 71 times. He was never caught.”

The silence that followed Lydia’s statement was heavy, as everyone processed what she had said, along with the information Deaton had given them.

“What age did the original profile point to?” Derek asked, breaking the silence and looking to Deaton for answers.

“He was originally profiled to be somewhere around his late 30s to mid 40s,” Deaton responded, and waited patiently as everyone, except Lydia, did the math.

“That would put him somewhere in his 70s or 80s today, are we sure this is the same guy?” Erica asked, staring at the horrific crime scene photos. “I mean, stabbing someone 46 times takes a lot of strength. This would have to be one seriously built 70-year-old for him to be responsible for that.” She gestured to one of the pictures on the screen, showing a close up of Nina Cape’s upper body, covered in blood and stab wounds.

“The glasses found on the scene belong to Gerard Argent, the Reaper’s only surviving victim. He was attacked in 1980 along with his girlfriend, Corinne Blake. The only reason he survived was because the Reaper called 911 to let the police know about his most recent murders. While we are certain the glasses are the genuine article, Erica is right. We can’t rule out the possibility that he has a younger partner or apprentice of some sort, or that some other disturbed individual somehow got their hands on the glasses and realized their significance.”

Stiles tried to keep his face neutral at the mention of the name. Gerard Argent had been the CEO of the weapons company Stiles had hacked and exposed for illegally hunting wolves. That was the reason Stiles had even gotten the job at the FBI in the first place, because exposing the Argent company had put him on the government’s radar. Gerard had stepped down after the scandal and let his daughter, Kate Argent, take over as CEO. Stiles had no idea Gerard had been the victim of a serial killer, but somehow, it didn’t much change his opinion of the man; animal cruelty was animal cruelty, no matter what the man had been through.

“My predecessor, Aaron Hotchner, worked on this case in 1981. He told me about it, and as soon as I got the call about the Boston murders, I feared that this might be connected to the original Reaper case. I just wanted to brief you all and to let you know that we will be looking closely into this case. The local police have not yet invited us in, but as soon as they do, we will go to Boston. In the meantime, I will be monitoring any new activity on the case while we work other cases. I apologize for keeping you here this long, and I think it’s about time all of you went home to get some rest. We’ll meet back here tomorrow morning.”

“Has anyone been in contact with Gerard Argent? I mean, since his glasses were left at the scene? Maybe he could help the investigation?” Derek asked, and Deaton sighed heavily, shaking his head.

“Gerard Argent died a year ago, at 76 years old. Heart attack.”

With that, Deaton shut off the screen, put down the remote, and exited the room, heading down the hall to his office.

“I guess that means he’s not going to listen to his own advice and go home and get some sleep,” Stiles said quietly, exiting the room with the rest of his team and heading towards the elevators.

“You know how Deaton is, Stiles, he never really stops working,” Scott said, shaking his head as they stepped into the elevator heading down.

“I know, Scotty, I know. Doesn’t stop me from worrying though.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Derek, Stiles and Kira were the only ones who exited the elevator on the ground floor, everyone else heading down to the basement where their cars were parked. Kira lived within walking distance, while Stiles and Derek both usually rode the metro home. After exiting the building, Kira said goodbye and went left, while Derek and Stiles both headed towards the closest metro station.

Stiles knew that Derek didn’t really hate him as much as he pretended to. He knew that, secretly, Derek liked the attention Stiles gave him. He may not be a profiler, but after years of working with a team of them, he had picked up a few of their tricks.

“So, Derek, got any exciting plans for the night?” he asked, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

Derek merely rolled his eyes, as he often did when talking to Stiles, and shook his head. “The only plans I have are to shower and then go to bed,” he answered dryly.

Stiles smiled innocently. “Sure you won’t get lonely? All by yourself in what I imagine must be a pretty big bed. Are you sure you don’t want any company?” Stiles winked, even though they both knew that Stiles had very similar plans of diving headfirst into his bed as soon as he got home.

Derek shook his head again, exasperated. “I’m completely sure, Stiles, no need to worry.”

“Fine, but let me know if you change your mind.” Stiles winked again for good measure before getting on his train waving goodbye to Derek as the doors closed and the train began moving. Once Derek was out of sight, Stiles moved to one of the free seats, sitting down and smiling to himself, having successfully teased Derek.

When he got back to his apartment, he opened up the mail box and gathered his letters before heading up the stairs towards his apartment. As he got inside and locked the door behind him, he absentmindedly flipped through the stack of bills and junk mail, before finding a thick, sealed envelope.

Stiles put the stack of other letters down on the coffee table in his living room and opened the envelope, slowly reaching into it and pulling out the papers inside. The envelope contained a stack of photographs, taken at various points throughout the city. There was one of Stiles getting coffee with Erica, one of him shopping with Kira and Lydia, one of him getting dinner with Scott, and several pictures of Stiles, alone, doing various errands around the city. The last picture was taken yesterday morning, while Stiles was on his way to work.

Slipping the pictures back into the envelope, Stiles sighed heavily, heading into his office, where he opened a desk drawer and put the envelope inside, on top of four other similar envelopes.

Stiles closed the drawer again, and went into his bedroom, where he quickly stripped and got into bed. He pulled the covers over his body and reached behind him on the wall to find the light switch and turn off the light. Right now, he was much too tired. He would freak out about his stalker tomorrow.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains descriptions of murder victims, and there's a blink and you'll miss it cannibalism mention. Also warning for someone getting a (non-fatal) gunshot wound. 
> 
> I feel like I should also warn for my horrible imagination when it comes to made up serial killer cases.
> 
> I'll try to post about twice a week.

This was the part of the job Stiles hated. He wasn’t an agent. He usually didn’t go into the field with the rest of the team. Which also meant that he wasn’t as used to seeing horrible things as his colleagues were. He hated looking at the crime scene photos, but he had to in order to put them in the presentation he was preparing for the briefing.

He was so busy putting together case files and gathering information on the victims, he didn’t notice Derek coming into his office and standing behind him. It was only when Derek coughed that Stiles noticed him, jumping in his chair and sending a stack of papers crashing to the floor.

Cursing, Stiles got out of his chair and knelt down to gather his papers. Derek quickly joined him on the floor, and their hands brushed against each other.

“What has made you so jumpy?” Derek asked, handing him the last of the papers and getting up off the floor, watching as Stiles put the stack of papers back on his desk. 

Stiles shrugged, thinking back to the envelopes hidden in his desk, back at the apartment. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t mentioned them to anyone. His team were, after all, the best at what they did. Stiles was fairly certain his stalker was harmless, and he didn’t want his team to worry about him. That was mainly why he hadn’t told anyone.

“Just anxiety I guess,” Stiles said, trying to sound nonchalant about it so Derek would stop asking. “Nothing new.”

Derek didn’t seem satisfied with his answer, but apparently decided to let it go. “Okay, but let me know if you change your mind and want to talk about what’s bothering you.”

Stiles opened his mouth to shut down Derek’s worries, but Derek merely shot a stern look at Stiles, causing him to close his mouth again. Arguing would only make it worse.

“Anyway, what I came to tell you is that the team is ready for the briefing whenever you are.”

Stiles nodded. “I’ll be out in a second. I just need to finish up this thing, and then I’ll be ready. In the meantime, you can start handing out files to everyone.” Stiles handed Derek a large stack of files, each containing the same information about their newest case.  

Derek nodded, but didn’t move right away, instead staying seemingly just to stare at Stiles and make him uncomfortable. Stiles sighed, turning his back on him and trying to ignore the presence behind him. He figured that if he pretended he didn’t exist, Derek would leave eventually.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Derek asked, his voice uncharacteristically quiet for once. Stiles shut his eyes tight and prepared to lie again. He knew he was a bad liar. He always had been. But he couldn’t afford to let Derek know what was happening. He hated having people worry about him. So instead of answering, he spun around in his office chair, crossing his arms over his chest and smirked.

“You need to stop worrying and relax, babe. I can help you with that if you want. I’ve been told I’m great at getting people to loosen up.” He winked for good measure, and watched as Derek groaned and rolled his eyes.

“Jesus Christ, Stiles, why can’t you just be honest with me?” Derek didn’t sound particularly angry, but it still made Stiles’ smirk fade. “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine, but don’t pretend like there’s nothing wrong. You’re a horrible liar.” With those final words, Derek left, closing the door behind him.

Stiles sighed heavily again. So, Derek knew something was going on. Of course he did. Stiles knew he had been on edge for the last few weeks, ever since the envelopes had started showing up. He tried his best not to think about it, but something was bound to slip through the cracks eventually.

Shaking his head, Stiles went back to work, putting the last few pictures in place, trying to keep his breakfast down while doing so. He really hated crime scene photos. Finally, he was finished. He grabbed the flash drive and closed his laptop, heading out of his office and up to the conference room, where the team was waiting for him.

“Sorry I’m late, guys, I just needed to finish up some things about the new case.” He opened his computer and connected it to the screen on the wall. Picking up the remote, he began the program and started telling his team about their newest case.

“Fresno PD. have requested our help. Three victims over the course of the last three weeks have been found at various locations in the Kings Canyon National Park, east of Fresno, California. The cause of death is different in each of the victims. The first victim, Kyle Benstead, was shot twice in the back.” Stiles pressed the remote to bring up the pictures the coroner had taken. “The second victim, Jennifer Tarrer, was strangled, and finally, the last victim, Sean Yasui, was stabbed 14 times in the chest.”

“Kyle Benstead was a 24-year-old college student at Fresno City College, studying Business and Technology. He was reported missing by his roommate when he didn’t return from a night out and he didn’t answer his phone. Found five days later by a jogger in Kings Canyon National Park, shot twice in the back.”

“The second victim, Jennifer Tarrer was a 21-year-old college student at UC Berkeley, studying chemistry. She was in Fresno for the weekend, and was reported missing by her mother, who said she was going out with her friends but never returned. Her friends said she left with a guy, which wasn’t uncommon for her, so they thought it was fine. She was found strangled three days later by hikers, also in Kings Canyon National Park.” 

“The last victim, Sean Yasui, was a 27-year-old teacher at the West Fresno elementary school. He was reported missing by his friend, after he failed to meet him for coffee on Saturday. He was found in Kings Canyon two days later, stabbed 14 times in the chest.”

Stiles was extremely glad that he could stand with his back to the screen while saying these things, because he had no desire to look at the pictures.

“Three different methods, no racial or gender preference? Kyle was white, Jennifer was black and Sean was Asian. Why do we think this is the same guy?” Erica asked, and Stiles continued, a grimace distorting his face as the next words left his mouth.

“Because, all of the victims had several chunks of flesh removed from their bodies. And the coroner has determined that they were all removed by human teeth.” Stiles pressed the remote to bring up three close-ups of the wounds, in addition to pictures of several other bite-marks also found on the victims.

“Cannibalism?” Kira asked, uncertain. Stiles couldn’t really blame her. This was definitely not something they dealt with often.

“That’s too early to be determined,” Deaton said. “But we can’t rule out the possibility.”

“What the boss-man said,” Stiles said, finishing up the presentation. “Fresno PD. are expecting you in about three hours. The jet is ready whenever you are.” Stiles put down the remote and sat down in the empty seat next to him, ready to take notes on his team’s ideas so he could look more into them after they left.

They stayed in the conference room for almost an hour before the team got up to leave. Stiles followed them to the elevator, typing quickly on his tablet while Deaton talked, giving him instructions to run background checks on all the victims to try to find some connections between them.

An hour later, Stiles video called the jet to let them know that he was working on it, but that he hadn’t found anything to connect the victims yet. They had different socioeconomic backgrounds, went to different colleges, frequented different places, they even took different buses.

“It’s infuriating!” Stiles groaned into the camera. “I mean, I’m still looking, but so far, it seems like they didn’t even go to the same Starbucks. The only connection I’ve found so far is that they’re all from Fresno, which doesn’t really help all that much since they lived in different parts of the city, and that they all like partying, which doesn’t really give me much since they’re all students.”

“Stiles, check their credit card receipts. We need to know if their routines changed in any way in the time before they were killed.”

“Copy that,” Stiles said. “I’ll let you know when I have something else.” He hung up, spinning in his chair just to get out some of his pent up aggression. He hated not being able to find what he needed. He had never been the most patient person, and while his ADHD had gotten better over the years, he still hated waiting.

They had interviewed all the victims’ families and friends, finding that none of them had any real information that was helpful. All of them had strong alibies, eliminating the chance of any of them being the unsub.

A while later, when Stiles had run every one of his programs with all the possible variables, his programs finished working with a small beep, causing Stiles to stop his spinning. Rolling closer to his desk, he scanned through the data he had collected. “Oh,” Stiles breathed. He felt the wheels spinning in his head, slowly forming an idea.

Typing quickly, Stiles put in the info he needed to check his theory and called a few people just to confirm that he was correct. He didn’t even bother taking his eyes off the screen as he dialed Scott’s number.

“Hey, Scotty,” he said as soon as Scott picked up. “I might have something here.”

“Okay, hold on, let me put you on speaker,” Scott said. “Alright, go on, Stiles.”

“So, after running every possible combination of places, restaurants, gyms, the whole shebang, I noticed that all of the victims went to clubs the nights they went missing. Not really that unusual considering they all went missing on the weekend, and they were all fairly young. Anyway, they all went to gay clubs the night they died. But, it doesn’t stop there. Since they all went to different clubs, I checked their calendars, and all the clubs had some form of bisexual theme night the night the victims went missing. They were all bisexual.”

“That could mean our unsub is too. Or he could be harboring some sort of rage towards bisexuals. Thanks Stiles, this helps.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

The team hadn’t found anything interesting at the crime scenes. They were all located in different places in the park that was over 700 000 square miles big. It was obvious that the park was merely the dump site, and not where the victims had been murdered. Other than that, the unsub didn’t leave any trace that might lead them to him.

Stiles was bored. Bored and anxious. The team hadn’t contacted him in hours, and he hadn’t found anything useful that he felt like they needed to know. Not yet at least. He needed something to do. Stiles Stilinski was not made to sit still. Just as he was about to get up and run around the office, the phone rang.

“Please give me something to do,” Stiles said, not even bothering to keep the desperation from his voice. 

“We may have a new victim, Stiles, I need you to run the name Emily Hilyard to see if she went to any of the clubs the other victims went to. She went missing last night. According to her friend, one second she was there, and the next she was gone.”

“Oh, yes, yes, of course, I’ll get back to you in a sec. Bye Derek.” He hung up, immediately starting to type. It didn’t take him long to find out that while, as he suspected, Emily Hilyard had not gone to any of the same clubs as the previous victims, as he had expected, she had also gone to a bisexual night at a local gay club.

A bit more digging told him that all the clubs were owned by the same guy, a Carl Hayes. “Now, Hayes, is not our guy. I checked, and he has solid alibies for the nights the victims went missing. This dude owns like twenty clubs, he’s all over the place, not just gay clubs either. And not just in Fresno, all over California.” Stiles paused to breathe, and, if he was being honest, a little bit for dramatic effect. 

“But that’s not the important thing. The important thing is this, so listen up folks. I talked to one of his people on the phone, and he said that since he can’t always be at every club, he always tries to make sure that one or two of his people hang around, you know, to supervise. Especially on the weekends. And before you say anything, I know, I know, cross check and find who was on duty those nights, which I did, and voila, Donovan Donati. His dad was a cop and got shot in the back when Donati was a kid which put him in a wheelchair. He, oh, he died after complications during surgery, leaving Donovan to grow up with his alcoholic of a mom, who apparently liked to sleep around, both with guys and girls.” 

“Donovan was eventually placed in foster care, and after he turned 18 he applied to be a deputy but his testing showed that he was unsuitable for law enforcement. Specifically, his Anger Expression Inventory showed that he had psychopathic tendencies and his request was denied. After this he bounced around between odd jobs before coming in contact with Carl Hayes, who employed him as a personal assistant. Of course, Hayes has about 50 “personal assistants” so he probably does other stuff for Hayes. Anyway, I just sent you his home address as well as the address to Hayes main office.”

“Thanks Stiles,” Deaton said, leaving him on speaker as he addressed the rest of the team. “Scott, you, Kira and Lydia go to his work. Derek, Erica and I will go to his apartment.”

Deaton hung up, but Stiles got onto the radio with them so he could listen in and give helpful advice as Scott, Kira and Lydia questioned his coworkers and searched the office, something Hayes was no doubt unhappy about. When they came up empty, he directed his attention to the other half of his team. He knew from Donovan’s credit cards and phone records that he rarely went anywhere other than work and then home again, sometimes stopping at a grocery store or a gas station, but he mostly seemed to stay at home. When he wasn’t out murdering people, that is.

So Stiles listened as Deaton kicked the door in, as Erica went into the bedroom, searching the bathroom, as Derek went out the back, yelling back as he saw Donovan getting away, grunting as a shot was fired, and then nothing. Stiles held his breath as he heard Deaton going after Donovan, catching up to him and bringing him down. He heard Erica talking to Derek and asking for an ambulance. “Officer down, I repeat, officer down.”

Derek didn’t say anything, but Stiles could hear moans of pain coming through the radio. He barely managed to keep from crying out, needing to know how badly Derek was hurt. Luckily he didn’t have to wait long. As he heard the ambulance in the background, the EMTs talking quietly, he decided to just call someone.

Erica didn’t pick up. Deaton didn’t pick up. Scott didn’t pick up. Finally, Stiles figured he’d try Derek, hoping that he wasn’t hurt badly enough that he was unconscious. Biting his lip, Stiles held his breath as the dial tone rang. He heard someone pick up, followed by a groan and a pained moan. “What do you want, Stiles, I just got shot.”

Stiles let out the breath he’d been holding. “Are you okay? Or, I mean, you just got shot, of course you’re not okay. Where did he hit you?”

“Upper arm. It’s not a big deal. Give me a week and it’ll be fine.”

“It is a big deal! You scared me, Derek!” 

Stiles could practically feel the amused look on Derek’s face. “I’m sorry I scared you, but it’s really not that bad. I promise. I’ll even show you when we get back if you want to.” Derek laughed, and Stiles grimaced. He wasn’t very good with blood.

“I’ll take your word for it,” he said dryly. “Or Scott’s. I can probably trust him to tell me the truth.”

“Not if I get to him first.”

“Dude, he’s my best friend. He tells me everything.” 

“I know,” he sighed. “I think the EMTs are getting kind of annoyed with me using my injured arm to hold my phone, so I think I need to go now.”

“What the fuck, Derek, doesn’t that hurt?”

“Not really? I guess it’s still the adrenaline. But I really have to go now, before they crush my phone. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Okay, bye Derek.”

“Bye, Stiles.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmu on [tumblr](http://illusemywords.tumblr.com/)
> 
> thanks to everyone who read, kudosed and commented!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Did you say sacrifices? As in, human sacrifices?”

The next few weeks were, as usual, busy for Stiles and his team. First came a case of people disappearing into thin air from seemingly random places, only to be discovered three days later, strangled, with their throats cut and their heads bashed in with a blunt object. “Any one of these injuries could have killed them,” Stiles explained, having read the coroner’s report before briefing the team.  

So the team left for Albany, New York, where the murders were taking place. From looking at the crime scenes and bodies, and Stiles being physically unable to leave any stone unturned – any digital stone, that is – lead them to something called “The threefold death. It was a method used by ancient Celtic druids when they sacrificed people.” The silence following Stiles’ statement was heavy.

“Did you say sacrifices? As in, human sacrifices?” Kira asked, incredulous.

“I did indeed. It seems like our killer thinks they’re a druid, or rather, a darach. You see, where druid means wise oak, and druids generally were considered to be, well, wise, darach means dark oak. And I think it’s safe to say that our mystery killer of the week is pretty dark.”

“Okay, thank you Stiles, call us if you have anything else.” And the line went quiet, leaving Stiles to return to his research. A day later, they had a suspect. Julia Baccari had majored in Celtic studies with a minor in mythology.

“She was released from the hospital four months ago after having been admitted with a lot of bruises and wounds to her face and arms. She wouldn’t tell anyone what had happened but the police suspected that her girlfriend was abusing her. However, since Julia never talked and the evidence was mostly circumstantial her girlfriend was released. After she was released from the hospital she disappeared off the face of the earth; no credit cards, no cell phones, no apartment, nothing, until she reappeared in Albany a month ago when she rented an apartment. 

They arrested her the next day, just when she was about to strangle her next victim with a homemade garrote.

Their next case turned out to be a high school chemistry teacher poisoning students whom the unsub felt wasn’t trying their hardest. The reason he wasn’t caught at first was that he wasn’t sticking to his own students. He wasn’t even sticking to his own school. He hacked his way into the Chicago school registry and used it to pick his victims. Of course, in the end, he slipped up, as they always do, and when the team was able to connect a third of the students to one Adrian Harris, it didn’t take long for him to confess.

Their third case that month was someone paralyzing their victims with some sort of weird neurotoxin that left them aware but unable to move. The killer then proceeded to crush, drown, or slash the throats of his victims. After the killer, Benjamin Belasko, had been caught, the team returned to Quantico, where Stiles was eagerly waiting for them.

“I know you guys are probably tired as fuck right now, but I’m starving. Does anyone want to grab something to eat?” Stiles asked his team.

“Sorry, bro, but I’m wiped, maybe another time,” Scott said regretfully, clapping Stiles on the shoulder before heading for the door.

“Yeah, me too,” Kira said.

“I could eat,” Derek said with a shrug. “What did you have in mind?”

“I know this tiny Indian place with awesome chicken tandoori that’s open all night. It’s not too far from here.”

“Sounds good.” Both Derek and Stiles ignored the pointed looks Lydia, Erica and Kira shared with each other.

“Awesome. Are you sure none of you want to join us?” Stiles directed the question at the rest of the room.

“Nah, it’s okay, you guys go without us. We can go together next time,” Erica said, grinning.

Stiles shrugged. “Alright, Derek, let’s go.”

From the outside, the place looked small, old, and shabby. An old and weather worn red and white marquee hung over the door, the white stripes almost grey from years of dirt and smoke from the city. Through the large window facing the streets, you could see small tables and somewhat matching chairs, and behind that, a counter before the door that lead to the kitchen. On the wall behind the counter was a large menu.

They placed their orders at the counter, paid upfront and watched as the man in front picked up a plate and placed spoonful’s of white rice, salad with tzatziki, and finally a piece of tandoori chicken on the white porcelain before placing it on the counter and pushing it towards Stiles before starting to assemble Derek’s plate.

Once they both had their food, they got their drinks, some brand of Indian beer Derek had never heard of, but which Stiles swore was good, and picked up a knife and fork and a couple of napkins before finding a place to sit.

About a minute after sitting down one of the people working there came over with a basket of two large, freshly made naan breads.

There were a couple of other people at the counter waiting for their takeout, but because of the late hour, they were the only ones sitting down.

They ate in silence for a few minutes before Derek spoke. “So, how did you find out about this place?” Derek asked around a mouthful of tandoori. 

Stiles looked up from his own food to glance around the small restaurant they were in. “I don’t know… I was out walking one night and just happened to pass by and see the sign. It doesn’t really look like much, but I’ve always loved Indian food, so I figured I might as well check it out. And it turned out to be pretty good.”

Derek nodded to his plate, preoccupied with eating once more. Between bites, Derek took swigs of his beer, which, as Stiles had promised, turned out to taste great.

“I know it might not seem like it right now, because it’s, you know, the middle of the night, but this place is usually packed,” Stiles said through a mouthful of food.

Derek nodded. “I can believe that,” he said, because while the place might not look like much, the food was delicious. Not too spicy, but still packed full of flavor. On the wall by the door Derek could see a handful of paper clippings with pictures of the restaurant, both the outside and inside. Presumably they were reviews.

“This is a great place to take dates,” Stiles commented absentmindedly, before seeming to catch himself. “Not that this is a date,” he was quick to correct, feeling a warm blush spread down his neck. “I mean, it’s not that I wouldn’t want to date you, because you’re definitely good looking and smart and generally awesome and all that, but this isn’t, you know, a date,” he finished lamely, mentally kicking himself for not being able to keep himself from ranting.

Derek smiled at him, not used to seeing this insecure and babbling side of Stiles. “Don’t worry, I didn’t think it was.” Stiles visibly deflated at his words.

“Great,” he mumbled, quickly taking a bite of his food.

After a few minutes of slightly awkward silence, Stiles looked up again, clearing his throat. “So,” he began. “How are things going with, uh, what was her name? Braeden?”

Derek nodded, wiping his mouth with a napkin and taking another sip of his beer. “We broke up,” he said with a shrug. “Our schedules just didn’t line up, and we figured out that it wasn’t really worth it. It was great while it lasted, but neither of us were really up for the others busy life. I mean, she’s a doctor, I’m a FBI agent, there was just no way it was going to work out. It’s fine though. No hard feelings.”

“That’s good then,” Stiles said. “I mean, that you parted on good terms. No one likes break ups, but those are definitely among the best ways to go.”

Derek agreed with a nod. They finished their food quickly after that, and left the restaurant together, heading in the same direction. 

“So, this was nice,” Derek said. “We should do it again some time, maybe try to get the rest of the team to come out with us. We haven’t been out together in ages.” 

“Yeah, remember that time we went to Kira’s house and she completely killed the food, so we had to order pizza instead?”

Derek laughed at the memory. “Oh yeah, the chicken was almost completely black. Honestly, if she hadn’t told us what it was, I would have seriously thought it was just a lump of coal or something.”

Stiles laughed. “Yeah, me too. Thank god we gave her those cooking lessons for her birthday. Now she at least knows how to cook pasta without burning it.”

As they got closer to Stiles’ apartment, silence fell between them once again. Stiles stopped in front of the steps leading up to his door and turned to Derek. “This is me,” he said, nodding backwards towards the building. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

“Bright and early,” Derek confirmed. “Goodnight, Stiles.”

“Goodnight, Derek.”

Stiles stood on the bottom of the steps, watching Derek walk away with a strange feeling in his stomach.

When Stiles got home a few days later, it was to find another manila envelope on the floor of his apartment. Swallowing loudly Stiles picked it up and opened it, figuring that it was better to get it over with.

He slowly pulled out the stack of photographs, white side up, and turned them around. The first few pictures were the normal pictures of Stiles on his way to work, on his morning run through the park near his apartment, getting groceries, and so on. The last five pictures however, got Stiles’ heart beating.

They were pictures of Stiles and Derek eating dinner together, in the nearly abandoned Indian restaurant. The first two pictures were taking from the outside, which could easily have happened without either of them noticing. It had been dark outside, after all, and they were both focusing on their food and on their conversation.

But the last three pictures were the ones that really scared him. They were taken from a completely different angle, with the front window of the restaurant behind them. They had to have been taken from inside the restaurant. Stiles’ stalker had been right there, and he hadn’t even noticed.

Stiles felt his breathing quicken, and he stumbled to his couch and all but fell down on it, still clutching the pictures in his hands. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down and not really succeeding at all. This was going too far. He had to tell someone what was going on, before the stalker escalated to actually trying to come in contact with Stiles or someone he cared about. He decided to go to Deaton first thing tomorrow, before the others came in. If anyone could help him, it was Deaton, but he still didn’t want the team to know.

The next day, Stiles was hurrying to work. His train had been late, and just as he ran up the stairs from the station and rounded a corner he collided with a body coming from the other side.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you,” Stiles said, clutching his purple and yellow striped umbrella that he had found at a thrift shop two years earlier. He reached down to help the stranger up from the ground, where he had ended up after Stiles crashed into him.

“Don’t worry about it,” the stranger reassured him, brushing his hands down the front of his black jacket. Taking a good look at the man in front of him, Stiles gulped. He hadn’t noticed in the heat of the moment, but he was definitely attractive; he had light brown hair that was cut short on the sides and long on top, swept up and away from his face in a way that was both artful and probably deliberately messy. He had greyish greenish looking eyes that seemed to sparkle playfully as he looked at Stiles. Stiles carefully didn’t think about another beautiful and green eyed man he knew about.

Trying desperately to keep his poker face, Stiles pressed his lips together tightly and swallowed the spit gathering in his mouth.

The man’s eyes followed the movement of his throat, and Stiles blushed. The man simply smirked and stretched his hand out for Stiles to shake.

“I’m Theo,” he said, giving him another blinding smile.

Stiles blinked, trying to clear some of the fog clouding his mind. “I’m Stiles,” he finally managed, extremely pleased with himself when his voice came out even.

The man, Theo, Stiles corrected to himself, cocked his head a little. “Stiles? That’s an interesting name,” he commented.

Stiles smiled. This, he could do. He worked with attractive smirking assholes every day; he wasn’t going to let this guy get to him. “My real name is much worse. I barely know how to pronounce it myself. Trust me, Stiles is better.”

The man nodded slowly to himself. “Alright, I believe you. Maybe you could tell me your real name some time though? If, of course, you’re not to busy to, let’s say, go out for coffee with me?”

Stiles felt himself smile at that. He hadn’t been asked out in months, let alone by a guy he had, quite literally, just run into. “I’d love to,” he answered honestly, before reaching into his pocket to fish his phone out. “Here, give me your number.” He handed his phone over to Theo, and watched as he typed in his number before handing it back to Stiles. 

Stiles quickly opened the contact labeled as ‘Theo Raeken’ and sent off a quick message to the number. “There, now you have my number as well,” he said.

Theo fished his own phone out of his pocket to read the message and laughed. “Can’t wait to run into you again :)”

He quickly typed something back and pressed send, and seconds later Stiles felt his phone vibrate in his hand. Looking down, he saw the message Theo had sent him. “Me too :)” Smiling down at his phone, Stiles caught sight of the time. 

“Shit,” he muttered, his smile slipping off his face. Looking up at Theo he saw his smile had dropped as well. “I’m really sorry about this, but I’m kinda late for work, so I really have to run,” he apologized quickly, pocketing his phone again and grabbing the strap of his messenger bag.

“No worries, I totally get it,” Theo said sincerely.

Stiles sighed, reassured that Theo didn’t think he was blowing him off. “Great,” Stiles said, beginning to walk away backwards from Theo. “Text me about that coffee date though.”

“I will,” Theo promised, giving Stiles one final smile before he turned around and ran towards the office.

When he finally got there, the few minutes he had stood still talking to Theo seemed to have been longer than he had originally thought. That, or everyone else had just come in earlier than usual. It might be either one, but Stiles didn’t have time to think about it. Shrugging off his coat, Stiles dumped it in the empty chair in front of him and dug his computer out of his bag. As he closed his bag again, he caught a quick glimpse of the six manila envelopes he had stuffed in there the night before. That would have to wait.

“What happened to you?” someone asked to his right. Stiles tried not to blush as he looked up at Derek, who had asked the question.

“Nothing,” Stiles said, knowing he looked like he had just sprinted to work, which, to be fair, he had. “I just realized I was running a bit late, so I ran.” Stiles tried to shrug it off, but he could see Scott narrowing his eyes at him from the other side of the table.

“Are you sure that’s it?” he asked, suspicious. “Don’t forget you’re standing in front of a room of highly trained profilers. We can tell when you lie.”

Stiles rolled his eyes at Scott. “Dude, I know that’s not true. You may be good, but you’re not _that_ good. Nothing happened, I promise. I just… The train was just late.”

Ignoring the whispered “Stiles has a boyfriend,” coming from a grinning Erica he turned back to his computer, working on getting the presentation up on the screen. Once it was up he handed Derek a stack of files which he then began to hand out around the table before sitting down and opening his own copy.

“Alright guys, let’s stop talking about my non existing romantic partner, because you’re going to sunny Santa Fe, New Mexico.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the response to this fic has blown me away! thank you so much to everyone who read, kudos'ed and commented!
> 
> the next chapter will be posted on thursday
> 
> you can find me on [tumblr](http://illusemywords.tumblr.com/)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Stiles goes on a date. That’s basically all that happens (oh and some people get killed, but what else is new amiright)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot begin to tell you how much second hand embarrassment I get from reading about Stiles' date. Which I wrote.

The case in New Mexico had taken a week to wrap up, and when they finally went home, everyone, including Stiles, was exhausted. Once he made sure they had all made it back to the office without too much fuss, they all headed towards the elevators. Even Deaton seemed to be going home for once, instead of staying back to do paperwork as he usually did.

It was early evening when Stiles got back to his apartment and collapsed onto his couch, a hand over his eyes as he just tried to keep his breathing even for a few minutes. Just as he was sure he was about to fall asleep, his phone vibrated in his pocket. 

Stiles briefly debated whether he should just ignore it when it vibrated again. Figuring that he might as well see what it was before heading off to his bedroom to go to bed for real. Unlocking his phone screen, he saw that he had two new messages from ‘Theo Raeken’, the man he had bumped into on his way to work the previous week.

‘Hi, how are you doing?’ the first message read, quickly followed by:

‘I was wondering if you’d be free for that coffee this week?’

Smiling to himself, Stiles quickly typed out his answer.

‘Just got home from work, totally wiped! Feels like I could sleep for days! I think I’m free on Friday, if that works for you?’

Stiles had barely locked his screen and walked into his bedroom before the phone vibrated again.

‘Ha ha, I feel your pain. Friday sounds perfect. Want to meet up outside the same metro station at 4?’

‘Sounds good. See you then.’

‘Can’t wait.’

That final message sent Stiles to bed with a small smile on his lips. It would be nice to have some semblance of normality in his life for once. 

The next day, Stiles reread the conversation with Theo on his way to work. He kind of wanted to text him again, but he didn’t want to seem clingy. And besides, he didn’t know what he could say. He didn’t really know anything about him, and that should probably worry him, considering the type of work he did, but it honestly didn’t. Stiles had always been a good judge of character, and Theo didn’t make any of his warning bells go off. Of course, that might just mean he was very good at hiding his deep dark parts, but Stiles wanted to go with his gut.

When he stepped out of the elevator, phone still clutched in his hand, he was met by Erica, who took one look at his face and smirked before grabbing his arm and dragging him bodily into a corner. “Okay, Stilinski, spill. Who’s your new boyfriend? Girlfriend? Whatever. Tell me.”

“There’s no one,” Stiles insisted, trying to discreetly put his phone in his pocket, and failing miserably when Erica immediately grabbed it and scrolled through his messages. 

“Who the hell is Theo Raeken, then, if he isn’t your boyfriend?” Erica asked, grinning widely. 

Just as Stiles was about to deny it again, the elevator opened and Derek and Scott stepped out, and, spotting them, joined them in the corner.

“What are you doing?” Derek asked, frowning as he looked between Erica and Stiles and Stiles’ phone in Erica’s hand.

“Stiles has a boyfriend,” Erica exclaimed and shoved the phone in Derek’s face, Scott leaning in to read as well.

“Who’s Theo?” Scott asked, looking at Stiles’ blushing face.

“He’s no one,” Stiles insisted, making a grab for his phone only for Erica to snatch it away. “He’s just some guy I met. We’re having coffee on Friday. Are you happy now?”

“Ecstatic,” Erica grinned, handing Stiles his phone back before turning and disappearing towards the briefing room, hips swaying. “Lydia! Guess what!” he heard her yell.

Stiles groaned, pocketing his phone before turning towards the wall and banging his head against it. Scott rolled his eyes and grabbed his shoulder, pulling him away from the wall. 

“You’re being overly dramatic about this. Why?” Scott asked seriously.

“I don’t know. It’s just embarrassing, because I haven’t been on a date in so long. And I swear to god, if this turns into anything even remotely serious, he’s not meeting any of you ever. I don’t need all you,” he paused to point at first Scott then Derek and then finished with a general wave around the office, “beautiful people stealing him away from me. Or scaring him away with your crazy.”

“To be honest, if your crazy doesn’t scare him away, I doubt ours will,” Derek said dryly, causing Stiles to slap him on the arm.

“Oh, fuck off,” Stiles said, but there was no malice behind the words. “Now get your butts in the briefing room. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Stop talking about my personal life and start thinking about doing your jobs instead.”

Scott and Derek backed off easily enough and headed into the briefing room where everyone else was already waiting for them. No one said anything, but Stiles assumed that Erica had already spread the information she had gathered to everyone in the office. Deaton raised an eyebrow at Stiles, while Kira shared a gleeful look with Lydia and Erica.

Their new case sent the team to Boise, Idaho, where the local police department were waiting for them. A string of weird disappearances had lead them to contact the BAU, hoping that they could help them.

People kept disappearing from their homes, only to reappear dead days later, with strange injuries and needle marks all over their bodies. They immediately went to talk to the coroner, while simultaneously calling Stiles to have him run purchase records for medical supplies in the area.

It turned out pretty quickly that while someone was buying an awful lot of chemicals and needles and other medical supplies, they were very good at covering their tracks. Stiles spent hours on end typing furiously and staring at the screens in front of him trying to make sense of what he was looking at.

He was trying to track the medical supplies, while also running backgrounds on the victims and trying to screen medical professionals in the area, but it was just too much. Unless the team somehow managed to find something that would help him narrow down the search, there was very little he could do.

And find something they did. Unfortunately, they found it on a new victim. A piece of paper with half a name on it was stuck under the victim’s shoe, seemingly from when she was abducted. It turned out that it had been stuck to a piece of gum, which made sure that the paper didn’t fall off.

A quick search later, and Stiles had the name of a medical supplier with a strange business record. Large amounts of supplies had gone out without an address attached to it, which led Stiles to believe that they might have something to do with the abductions. And he was right.

The team went to talk to one of the medical suppliers, only for him to split as soon as he heard the word ‘FBI’. They caught up with him, and he quickly admitted what they needed to know, and where the supplies were really going. From there, it was simply a matter of going to the address the guy had given them – after Stiles checked it out of course – and finding the unsubs. 

When the team got home, Stiles greeted them as usual. He had ordered Chinese takeout that they all shared before everyone headed home. The next day, instead of getting a new case, they spent the day catching up on paperwork. That worked out great for Stiles, because that meant he could actually leave early and be there in time for his coffee date with Theo. Well, almost.

Stiles hurried out the door, ignoring his coworkers calling after him, and managed to make it to the metro station just five minutes late. He stopped in front of Theo, who was leaning against a wall, and had to bend down and hold his knees to pant for a good 30 seconds before straightening up and looking at Theo.

“I’m sorry I was late, shit went down at work,” Stiles explained to a smiling Theo. 

“That’s alright, I know the feeling. Don’t worry about it.”

Stiles smiled, grateful that Theo wasn’t mad at him or thought he was blowing him off.

“Do you want to get out of here? I know a nice little coffee shop not too far from here. It’s not that well known, so we probably won’t have any problems finding a table.” 

“That sounds great. Lead the way.”

Theo did lead the way. They walked side by side for about ten minutes before stepping into a very cozy and small coffee shop. There were comfy looking armchairs all around the room, with small bookshelves filled with old books decorating the walls and corners. Small lamps lit up the coffee shop in a warm and comfortable light. Stiles loved the place immediately. 

“What do you want?” Theo asked, gesturing towards the glass counter where Stiles could see freshly baked croissants, scones, cakes and cupcakes along with other small desserts and pastries. “My treat.”

“You really don’t have to –”

“Hey, I invited you, didn’t I? Let me pay for you,” Theo insisted, and Stiles’ quieted down.

“I’ll have a double mocha and one of those little cupcakes,” Stiles said eventually, after having studied all the different options inside the counter.

“Coming right up,” the barista promised after taking Theo’s order as well.

Stiles and Theo stood by the counter while they waited for their coffee. Stiles picked absentmindedly at the frosting on his chocolate cupcake; a bright pink swirl of sugar that Stiles couldn’t wait to taste.

“So, you have a bit of a sweet tooth, huh? Good to know,” Theo commented, gesturing to his cupcake.

Stiles smiled and nodded. “Yeah, I used to bake a lot of cakes with my mom, so I guess I got it from her.” Memories of early Saturday mornings with cookies or cupcakes or pastries in the oven while Stiles sat on the counter and eagerly watched the timer filled Stiles’ mind.

“Used to?” Theo prompted gently, snapping Stiles out of his thoughts.

“Yeah, she died when I was 8,” Stiles said with a small shrug, trying not to make a big deal of it, even though he knew the exact reaction it would get.

“Oh,” Theo said, a sad look suddenly on his face. “I’m sorry.”

Stiles waved his hand. “Don’t worry about it. You couldn’t have known.”

“I know, but I’m still sorry,” Theo insisted as the barista came over with their coffees. “Let’s find a place to sit and talk.”

Stiles followed Theo to a corner table with two large and comfortable looking armchairs facing each other. Theo sat down in the one facing the door, so Stiles sat in the one facing the back wall. Putting his coffee and cupcake down on the table, Stiles unzipped and shrugged off his jacket before relaxing into the chair. He grabbed his mug and held it in both hands, closing his eyes and breathing in the warm smell of coffee and chocolate. 

“How did you find this place?” Stiles asked when he reopened his eyes, looking around at the pictures and small decorative pieces on the walls and shelves around the room.

Theo shrugged. “Good luck, I guess. I was just out walking one day and happened to stumble upon it.”

“That’s how I found my favorite Indian restaurant!” Stiles exclaimed, smiling brightly into his cup of coffee.

“Really? I love Indian. You’ll have to take me some time.”

“I’d love to.”

“Awesome. We can plan the date later. Right now, I want to get to know you.”

“Fine with me. It just so happens that I want to get to know you too.”

Theo smirked at that, seemingly very pleased.

“Alright, Stiles, where do you work?”

“I’m a technical analyst with the FBI,” he said proudly. He knew his job was cool, and he loved telling people about it. Well, telling them as much as he was allowed to, anyway.

“Really? The FBI? That’s so interesting. What does a technical analyst do?”

“I help agents, well, my team, when they’re in the field by running background checks, looking for patterns, reviewing credit card records and stuff like that. Basically I do all the technical stuff.”

“That sounds very interesting. Do you ever go into the field?”

“Well, I’m not really a trained field agent, but sometimes I join the team wherever they’re working, if they think I can do more to help on site. But I usually just stay in my office. But enough about me. What do you do?”

“I’m currently working on opening a new branch of my family’s hardware store, so I travel a lot between Boston and Quantico right now. Mostly taking care of paperwork and boring stuff like that. But it gives me a lot of free time, so it’s not so bad.”

“Boston, huh?” Stiles asked, peeling the paper off one side of his cupcake. Theo’s eyes followed the movement.

“Yeah, have you ever been? It’s quite nice this time of the year. Well, if you ignore the murders I guess. That’s another reason I like getting away for a while.”

Stiles nodded. “Yeah, I’ve heard about those. The murders are really similar to the original Boston Reaper ones, aren’t they?” 

“Yeah,” Theo answered, nodding. “It’s kind of creepy really. Do you know if the FBI is involved yet? I guess you probably can’t tell me anyway, huh?” 

Stiles took a bite of the cupcake to give him some time before having to answer. The sugary taste of the frosting and the spongy texture of the cupcake mixed sweetly in his mouth. He tried not to think back to the case files he had already read in connection to the recent murders. “I probably couldn’t, no, but honestly, I have no idea. I probably don’t know any more than you do. You might even know more, since you live there and probably get your news fresh from the source.”

“Yeah, that might be true. I figured now that I know what you do, I might as well ask.”

Stiles finished his cupcake in a few more bites, and swallowed the last bite down with a mouthful of coffee. He nodded, understanding completely. “I get it. I’d probably do the same thing if I was you.”

“Well, this isn’t a very nice date topic, so let’s talk about something else. How did you get to be a technical analyst with the FBI? I’m sure that’s a very interesting story.”

Stiles blushed, thinking back to the interrogation room he had been brought to all those years ago. “It’s kind of an embarrassing story,” he admitted sheepishly.

“Well, that’s even better then,” Theo laughed. “Tell you what, if you tell me what happened, I’ll tell you an embarrassing story of my own.”

“Okay, that seems fair.” Stiles took a deep breath. “I was arrested. For hacking into the database of a major weapons company. The FBI offered me a choice; go to jail, or come work for them. It was a simple choice, really. I’m too pretty for jail.”

“That’s very true,” Theo agreed, eyes swiping hungrily over Stiles’ face.

Stiles blushed and looked away, a small smile on his lips. He knew he wasn’t bad looking, but he still wasn’t used to other people noticing him. Especially not when he was usually seen with his team of gorgeous FBI agents.

They finished their coffees fairly quickly after that, making pleasant small talk. Stiles learned that Theo’s father had started their business when he was in his twenties, and since it had expanded in recent years, they had decided to open a second store, in a completely different state, since they had some business contacts here that had promised to help them out.

Stiles told Theo about his father, and how he was the sheriff of a small town in Nowhere, USA. He told him how he still, to this day, had no idea that Stiles had been arrested for hacking, and that he was pretty sure he’d be killed if he ever did find out.

They left the coffee shop together, and walked together back to the metro stop, where they stopped. Theo had told him that he lived nearby, so he didn’t need to take the train.

“I had fun today,” Stiles admitted, not wanting to leave quite yet. He knew he should probably get home and call his dad or something, but he had really enjoyed the time with Theo.

“Me too,” Theo said, smiling. “We should definitely do it again sometime.” 

Stiles nodded. “I agree. Text me, okay?”

“I will. Maybe we can go to that Indian place you talked about?”

“I’d like that.”

“Don’t you have a train to catch?” Theo asked, cocking his head a little to the side.

Stiles shrugged. “I’m not in a hurry, I can just take the next one.”

“Good,” Theo said. “Because that means I have time to do this.” Theo leaned in, and Stiles’ breath left his lungs in a whoosh as Theo’s lips hit his own in a soft kiss. Stiles closed his eyes and leaned into the kiss, letting Theo pull him closer with a hand behind his neck. When they broke apart, Stiles slowly blinked his eyes open and stared at Theo with his mouth still slightly open.

“I hope I didn’t overstep any boundaries. You just looked so good.”

This time Stiles couldn’t stop himself from blushing, feeling the warmth spread across his face and neck quickly and relentlessly. “Um, no, that’s fine, it was good. I liked it. A lot. I’m totally up for more of that.”

Theo smiled, huffing out a laugh. “Maybe later. You should go catch your train. I’ll text you later, yeah?”

Stiles nodded, and leaned in for a second peck on the lips, unable to help himself, before turning around and heading down the stairs towards the trains.

Back at his apartment, Stiles swore he could still feel his lips tingling from the kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr](http://illusemywords.tumblr.com/)
> 
> again, thank you to everyone who read, kudos'ed and commented on this!
> 
> not that much action in this chapter, i'm afraid, but things will start picking up soon. next chapter brings more texting, stalker business and sheriff stilinski ;)
> 
> see you on monday


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Soooo,” Scott said, wiggling his eyebrows at Stiles. “When are you going to see him again?”
> 
> Stiles shrugged. “I’m not sure. He might have to go back to Boston for a few days, but hopefully next week sometime. I was thinking of taking him out for Indian.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe how many of you guys don't trust Theo, lmao ;)

“Alright, Stilinski, tell me how it went,” Erica demanded, slamming two beers down on the table. Stiles picked up one of the bottles and raised it to his lips, taking a long drink before setting it down again. He wrapped his hands around the bottle, feeling the cold wetness of condensation against his fingers.

“It went well,” he said, not wanting to seem overly excited. “We had coffee and talked. We’re probably going to meet up again sometime next week, if our schedules match up.” Stiles shrugged and lifted his beer again.

Just as Erica was about to say something, two other people arrived, Lydia and Kira, joining them in the booth. “What did we miss? Are you the only ones here?” Lydia asked.

Stiles nodded. “Yeah, we got here like ten minutes ago, and you didn’t miss anything,” Stiles insisted.

“Stiles had just started telling me about his date with his mystery guy when you guys got here. You got here just in time, really.” 

Stiles rolled his eyes at them. “Maybe we should just wait until everyone gets here? So I don’t have to tell the story more than one time?”

“Alright, but don’t think you’re going to avoid our questions, Stilinski,” Erica threatened playfully.

“Do you know what you want?” Kira asked, looking down at her menu when Scott, Derek and Deaton arrived, squeezing into the last available seats around the booth.

“I’m just getting a burger,” Stiles said, putting his menu down and taking another swig of his beer.

Once the waiter came around a few minutes later and took their drink orders (with the exception of Stiles and Erica, since Erica had gone up to the bar to get their beers when they arrived), the girls, and Scott, seemed intent on getting all the details of his date with Theo out of him. Deaton didn’t offer any comment, but watched the conversation silently, while Derek stared intently at his menu, looking a bit like he wanted to rip it in two.

So Stiles told them what had happened, how Theo had paid for their coffee at the adorable little coffee shop, how they had talked a bit about themselves, and how Theo had followed him back to the metro stop. He stopped there, knowing that if he were to tell his friends and coworkers about the kiss they would never stop bugging him about it.

“Soooo,” Scott said, wiggling his eyebrows at Stiles. “When are you going to see him again?”

Stiles shrugged. “I’m not sure. He might have to go back to Boston for a few days, but hopefully next week sometime. I was thinking of taking him out for Indian.”

“Wait, he’s from Boston? As in the Boston Reaper? Damn, that must suck,” Scott commented, lowering his voice at the mention of the case. Even though they weren’t officially on the case, they still knew more of the details than what was public knowledge, and they wouldn’t want anyone overhearing them.

“Yeah, he asked me if we were working on it, but I just told him I couldn’t tell him anything. But since you mentioned it, do they know anything new?”

Scott shook his head with a look at Deaton.

“Nothing new yet, it seems,” Deaton said with a small shake of his head.

The waiter returned with their drinks and took their food orders before leaving again.

“But! Enough about me. And murder cases. Honestly. Derek, how’s your love life going?” Stiles pointed at Derek who glared right back at him. “Anyone new on the sourwolf radar?”

“No.”

“Lame. Who wouldn’t want a piece of that?” Stiles said with a smirk.

“Amen to that,” Erica said, high fiving Stiles. Derek rolled his eyes.

The next few minutes passed without any more talk of relationships or murders. Stiles learned that Erica had been looking into getting a house but that she might just get a cat instead, that Scott badly wanted another dog, and that Lydia had reread some obscure Russian literature that no one had heard about over the weekend. 

The food arrived shortly after, and they were all immersed in eating for a few minutes. Then, their conversation started up again after a little while, while they all took bites of their food. 

“So, did you guys just come in from the office?” Kira asked, directing the question to Scott, Deaton and Derek, who had been the last ones to arrive.

Derek nodded, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Yeah. Paperwork.”

“Sounds interesting,” Stiles said dryly.

Scott shrugged. “It’s not too bad, once you get used to it. You guys should be glad we take care of most of the papers, or you’d all still be at the office. Maybe excluding Stiles. I can’t really imagine you have that much paperwork.” 

Stiles shook his head. “Nah, mostly just if I need to order any new tech for the office and stuff like that. The joys of being a technical analyst instead of an agent.”

“Speaking of technical analysis, have you done a background check on your new boyfriend yet?” Lydia asked, raising an eyebrow at Stiles, who rolled his eyes in return.

“No. And I’m not going to. Because that would be an insane breach of privacy, and I don’t want him to think I’m a crazy stalker or something.” His choice of words made him think of his own stalker, and the fact that he really should tell someone about it soon, but he ignored it. There would be time for that later. 

For now, he just wanted to enjoy a nice dinner with his friends. And besides, he hadn’t gotten any new pictures since he’d gotten the ones of him and Derek eating dinner together, and that had been nearly two weeks ago, so maybe he was getting tired of Stiles.

Stiles knew of course that that wasn’t how stalkers usually worked, and that he was most likely still out there, watching him, but he was allowed to hope, wasn’t he? Stiles knew that, and yet, he still hadn’t told any of his coworkers, people trained to deal with things like this, about any of the packages he had gotten. For all he knew, the stalker could be targeting his friends as well as himself, and Stiles knew he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if anything happened to them because of him. Determined, Stiles decided that he would talk to Deaton first thing tomorrow.

When he got back to his apartment after they finished dinner, he gathered up all the envelopes he had gotten and stuffed them in his messenger bag so he wouldn’t forget it in the morning. He had tried once before, but had gotten distracted by Theo, but this time he was determined not to let anything stop him. He needed to do this.

Once he had done that, he went into the kitchen to get himself a beer and then returned to the couch. He had originally planned to see if he found something good to watch on TV, but ended up finishing his beer quicker than he had thought and heading to bed.

The next morning, Stiles went into work and immediately sought out Deaton. He found him in his office, working on paperwork, as always, and quietly shut the door behind him. At the sound, Deaton looked up, frowning at Stiles. “Stiles, what’s wrong?” he asked, gesturing for him to take one of the chairs in front of his desk. 

“I need your help with something,” Stiles said, holding his messenger bag tightly in his hands, his fingers going white where he was clutching the straps. “I probably should have come to you sooner, but I didn’t think it was a big deal, at first. I thought I could handle it, but I obviously couldn’t.”

Deaton’s frown deepened. “What did you do, Stiles?” he asked.

Stiles shook his head. “I didn’t do anything. Or, at least I didn’t do anything on purpose.” He opened his bag and pulled out the envelopes. “I’ve been getting these for the past month. The first one I got is at the bottom.”

Stiles handed over the packages and watched silently as Deaton opened them one by one and pulled out the stacks of pictures, thumbing through them with a thoughtful hum here and there. A few minutes later he looked up at Stiles with a calculating look in his eyes. “Why didn’t you bring me this sooner?” he asked.

“I told you, I didn’t really think it was serious at first, and then it kind of… escalated. Did you see the last pictures? Of me and Derek? Those were taken from inside the restaurant. He had to be inside, standing practically right in front of us, to be able to take those pictures. And none of us noticed. Not even Derek, and he’s a trained FBI agent.”

Deaton hummed again. “I’ll look into it. In the meantime, let me know immediately if any new packages show up, or if you see any strange people. Especially if you think someone is following you. I think it might be best if we keep this from the team, at least for now, until we know what we’re dealing with. I wouldn’t want to cause them any unnecessary worry.”

Stiles visibly exhaled, relieved that they weren’t going to tell the team. He really didn’t want them to know. At least not yet. If it came to it, they would tell them, but he hoped they wouldn’t have to do that. After all, the team had other, more important cases to work on. Stiles wouldn’t want to come in the way of that.

Nodding, he stood up and moved to exit the office, satisfied that he had done what he came here for. He put his hand on the door handle, and moved to twist it, when Deaton’s voice came from behind him. “And Stiles?” Stiles turned around, curious. “Be careful.”

“I will be,” he said, nodding, and opened the door.

“What was that about?” Scott asked when Stiles came into hearing range.

“It was nothing. I just needed to talk to him about something,” Stiles said with a shrug, trying not to show anything on his face. He wasn’t totally confident in his ability to do so, but Scott didn’t push it.

“So, do we have a new case yet? I mean, since you were in there with Deaton, I figured he might have said something to you?”

Stiles shook his head. “No, he didn’t say anything. I have no idea if we have a case, but hopefully he’ll let me know in time to get a presentation together. Unless he’s planning on doing it himself, but that would be kind of unusual.”

Scott nodded. “So,” he said. “Coffee?”

Stiles smiled. “Yeah, that would be great. I’m kind of wiped.” Stiles followed Scott into the small kitchen where the coffee machine stood. Scott poured himself and Stiles a cup each, and while Scott poured cream in his, Stiles dumped three sugar cubes into his own. They both stirred their coffees in silence before dumping their stirring pins in the garbage and heading back into the office.

Stiles’ phone vibrated in his pocket, and he fished it out to look at the screen curiously. The screen lit up with a new message from Theo, and Stiles couldn’t keep a small smile off his face.

“Uh oh,” Scott said, nudging Stiles in the side with his elbow. “I know that face. What did he say?”

Stiles rolled his eyes, but swiped his thumb across the screen and tapped in the passcode anyway, opening his new message.

‘Hey, I’m sorry I haven’t texted in a while, things were super busy back in Boston, but I’m back in town now. Meet up this weekend?’ the message read.

“He’s asking if I want to hang out this weekend,” Stiles said to Scott, putting his coffee cup down on the desk and typing out his reply. 

‘That sounds great. When and where?’

He hit send and pocketed his phone again, picking up his cup of coffee and taking a long sip.

“So, you seem to really like this guy, huh?” Scott asked.

“Yeah, I mean, I obviously don’t know him that well yet, but he seems really great. And it’s not like I have a ton of other options either.” Stiles shrugged, trying not to seem too bothered by it. And to be honest, he wasn’t. He did like Theo. He did.

“But enough about me. How is your love life going? Anything new to report?” Stiles wagged his eyebrows suggestively at Scott, who laughed. 

“Well, I did meet a really cute girl the other day. She works at the gun rink over on 25th street. You know the place? Yeah, I went in there the other day to do a few practice rounds for my license renewal test, and we kind of really hit it off. She definitely knows her stuff. Her name is Allison.” 

Scott stared off into space with a far off look on his face. Stiles was very familiar with that particular face, and resigned himself to having to hear about this girl for weeks until Scott finally got his shit together and asked her out. No matter how many times Stiles told him just to do it, Scott never seemed to learn.

“She’s probably way out of my league though,” Scott said with a sigh and a slight shake of his head.

Stiles groaned. He had been dealing with this for years, ever since he joined the bureau and met Scott. “Scott, listen to me. We’ve been over this. You’re a freaking FBI agent. There’s no way she will think she’s out of your league. Now, did you talk to her?”

“Yeah, she asked me if I needed any help, because I kept missing the target. I was nervous I guess, but I just told her I was having an off day and that I was a bit nervous about my test. So she helped me out a bit, helped me keep my hands steady and corrected my stance and stuff like that. It was great. She even told me that guns aren’t really her weapon; she’s a nationally ranked archer. How amazing is that?”

“That does indeed sound amazing,” Stiles agreed. “So, are you going to ask her out?”

Scott shrugged and stared into his coffee cup. “I don’t know. Probably, eventually, but I just don’t want her to think I’m some creep who just wants to get in her pants.” Stiles laughed. “I’m serious, Stiles. She’s amazing. I don’t want to blow it with her.” 

Stiles nodded. “Yeah, yeah, big guy, I get it. But honestly, if she’s as perfect as you think she is, she won’t think you’re a creep. Trust me. Everyone wants you. You’re like the hot girl that every guy wants.”

“The hot girl?” Scott asked, confused, as Derek approached them.

“You are the hottest girl,” Stiles said, and Derek frowned between them, confused about the conversation taking place.

“I’m the hot girl,” Scott said, smiling. 

“Yes, you are,” Derek agreed, rolling his eyes. “Now, come on, Deaton wants us all in the briefing room.”

“Sure thing, chief,” Stiles said with a mock salute.

Derek grunted something unintelligibly and walked away from them, just as Stiles’ phone vibrated in his pocket again. Picking it up and staring at the screen, Stiles saw that Theo had answered him.

‘How about we meet at the same place, around 7? And then we can go to that Indian place you talked about?’

Stiles answered enthusiastically yes, and pocketed his phone before following Scott and Derek up to the briefing room.

That night, Stiles called his dad. They usually talked at least once a week, but Stiles had been preoccupied with the photographs showing up in his mailbox and in his apartment, as well as being busy with work, so they hadn’t spoken in nearly two weeks. Not that it was just his fault. He knew his dad had his own busy life as the Beacon Hills sheriff, and that stuff was going down there as well, even if it wasn’t as extreme as the cases Stiles worked on. And he desperately hoped it would stay that was. He had no desire for the team ever to get called in to help on a Beacon Hills case, because that would mean his dad was most likely in danger with a serial killer on the loose, and if the murderer didn’t get to him, the stress just might.

Pressing his father’s name on his phone screen, he waited until the dialing screen showed before lifting the phone to his ear to hear the buzzing sounds that meant it was ringing.

It rang three times before his dad picked up. “Hey, son,” he said, sounding exhausted. “How are you doing?”

Stiles looked at the clock and realized that his dad had probably been sleeping. “Did you just get home from an overnight shift?” Stiles asked, feeling guilty. But to his defense, Stiles didn’t live there anymore, and keeping up with his dad’s schedule was increasingly difficult with him doing extra shifts all the time.

“Yeah, I came home a few hours ago, but don’t worry about it. It’s evening in D.C. now, right? How was work?”

“Yeah, it’s 7.30. Work was fine, we’ve had a break from cases for a few days now, so that’s been nice. I mean, I usually stay in the office of course, but I know all the travelling is taking its toll on the team, so I’m glad they get to stay here for a little while at least.”

“Sounds good. How’s Scott doing?” His father had only met Scott the few times he’d come out to visit Stiles, but they got along great. They were almost like old friends, if it wasn’t for Scott being a lot closer to Stiles’ age than his father’s. It was almost like an instant connection, just as Stiles and Scott had had. Sometimes Stiles wondered if that was just how Scott was, or if it was a Stilinski family thing. He would probably never know unless Scott somehow met some other distant Stilinski family member, of which there weren’t a lot.

He supposed that if his mother was still alive they could have tested it out easily enough, but she had been dead for years now. Stiles closed his eyes, trying to rid himself of the sudden image of his mother lying in a hospital bed. He concentrated on answering his dad’s question instead.

 “He’s doing pretty good. He just met a new girl, actually. Her name is Allison, and she works at a gun rink. They’re probably perfect for each other. I mean, I haven’t met her, but from what he’s told me she seems to be.”

“Hmm,” his dad said. “That’s great, tell Scott I said hi. And what about you? How’s your love life going? Any new boys or girls in your life I should know about?” Ever since Stiles had come out as bisexual to his father in high school, his dad had been adamant on showing Stiles how accepting he could be. And he had been, through the few boyfriends and girlfriends Stiles had had in college. He had never said or done anything to make him think he was even remotely against his orientation.

“Well, there might be someone,” Stiles admitted slowly. “I only met him a few weeks ago, and we’ve only gone out once, but he seems really nice. His name is Theo, and he’s originally from Boston. He travels back and forth between here and Boston because his family is opening a hardware store here. We’re meeting up again this weekend I think, but it’s nothing serious yet.”

“That’s great,” his dad said. “It’s been too long since you’ve been on a date, I’m glad you’ve met someone. Just let me know if it turns serious, because I’ll have to give him the ‘don’t hurt my son or you’ll regret it’ speech.”

Stiles groaned into the phone. “Dad, Jesus, you’re so embarrassing. Please don’t do that. I’m an adult, remember? I can take care of myself.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but you’ll always be my son, no matter how old you get.”

Stiles rolled his eyes, knowing that his father couldn’t see it. “Ugh, I’m hanging up on you. Go back to sleep, please.”

His dad laughed on the other side of the phone. “Sure thing, kiddo, you do the same alright? I may not be there, but I know you’re not getting enough sleep.”

“Just as I know you’re not eating healthy and staying away from the curly fries. Goodbye dad, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye, son.” Stiles hung up and slung his phone onto the couch. Stiles sighed, rubbed his face with his hand and shuffled into the kitchen to make some dinner. After years of living alone, Stiles had gotten good at cooking for just himself, but his extroverted heart always enjoyed himself more when he had guests.

As he sat down to eat his single portion of lasagna, he made a mental note to invite Scott over for pizza and beer after his date with Theo. And maybe he could invite Theo over sometime too, if their relationship lasted long enough for that kind of thing. Finishing his dinner and quickly cleaning the dishes he had used, Stiles dried off his hands and went back to his living room.

While falling asleep on the couch wasn’t how he wanted his nights to go, it was certainly how he ended up most of the time. Waking up with a crick in his neck in the middle of the night never ceased to annoy him.

Getting up from his couch and cracking his neck, Stiles shuffled into his bedroom to get ready for bed for real. He had no idea what time it was, but from the darkness outside his window he guessed that it was somewhere around 2 am.

Undressing and pulling the covers away from his bed, Stiles got into bed and turned off the light, trying to get comfortable and fall asleep again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr](http://illusemywords.tumblr.com/)
> 
> all your comments seriously make my day! thank you so much


	6. Chapter 6

Stiles’ next date with Theo went as well as the first one had. They ended up going to the Indian place where Stiles had taken Derek. They ordered their food up at the counter before balancing the plates in their hands and trying not to drop anything as they made their way to one of the few empty tables in the restaurant.

“This place is really packed,” Theo commented, looking around the small restaurant. “That’s always a good sign.”

“I know. The first time I came here was at like 11 at night, when it was mostly empty, so it was quite a shock to me the next time I came here.”

“Yeah, I can understand that. This food is really good though, so I totally get why people come here. I can’t believe no one’s told me about this place before. It’s a tragedy, really.”

Stiles laughed and cut off a piece of his chicken. “Well, at least you know now. Better late than never, right?” He popped his fork into his mouth and barely held back a moan. Indian food really was amazing. Tearing off a piece of his naan bread and dipping it into the mixture of rice and sauce, he took a bite of that as well.

“The rice and meat and sauce and naan just make such a great combination. And they make it just spicy enough.”

“I completely agree. I’m not that good at eating spicy food, but this is just right. It doesn’t overwhelm my taste buds completely; you know?”

“Yeah, I totally understand. When I was younger, I used to chug a gallon of milk every time me and my mom got home from the local Indian place. It took some getting used to, but now I love it. And it’s not like I didn’t love the tastes when I was little, I just had a problem with how spicy it was.”

Theo laughed. “The first time I tried spicy food, I was like 10, and I was completely convinced there was steam coming out of my ears. I thought my head was going to explode, but of course it didn’t. I just had a glass of milk and calmed down.”

Stiles laughed. “Little kids and spicy food usually don’t mix well. My dad’s never really been a fan, but he always got it when me or my mom wanted it. He’s great like that.”

“I’m sure he is,” Theo agreed, a soft smile on his lips as he stared at Stiles.

“So,” Stiles began. “Let’s get to know each other a little bit better. What’s your favorite book?”

“What would you do if I told you it was 50 shades of grey?” Theo asked playfully

Stiles smiled mischievously. “I’d tell you that it’s a horrible representation of BDSM and recommend that you read The Siren by Tiffany Reisz instead, as it’s a much better book, and doesn’t include any abusive or manipulative relationships. Now, what’s your real answer?”

Theo sat back in his chair, obviously impressed by the answer he had gotten. “Alright. The picture of Dorian Grey.”

“Huh, really? I would have pictured something less… classic. But that just shows me for being prejudiced I guess. I’ve never really been a fan of Oscar Wilde, but to each their own.” Stiles used the last of his naan bread to sop up the last drops of sauce on his plate before putting his knife and fork down.

“What’s yours?”

“Slaughterhouse 5,” Stiles answered, watching Theo’s face for his reaction.

“Vonnegut," Theo said with a nod. "He’s always seemed a bit too postmodern for my tastes, but as you said, to each their own.”

“Okay, so, more questions… Summer or winter?”

“Winter,” Theo answered with a nod.

“Summer,” Stiles said. “Growing up in California we barely even had winters. After moving here, I saw snow for the first time, which could be described as kind of a magical experience I guess, but not magical enough to make me like it. Not after actually being outside in it.”

“I guess I don’t have to ask you what your favorite food is?” Theo teased, gesturing to the restaurant around them.

Stiles laughed. “No, I guess not. What gave it away?”

“Oh, I don’t know, it might be the shameless bragging about this place.”

“I’m never as subtle as I think I am.”

“I don’t think anyone is. I’m certainly not.”

“That’s good to know. So, are you ready to get out of here? I’ll let you choose where we get our dessert, if you want?” Stiles asked, seeing as how they were both finished with their food and he was sure there were other people who wanted their table.

“Yeah, I think there’s a good churro place not too far from here, we can go there if you want? It might not go that well with Indian normally, but I have a craving for melted chocolate and sugar, so who cares, right?”

“I like your attitude. Especially when it comes to melted chocolate. I might have to keep you around.” Stiles held the door open for Theo as they exited into the cold air. Following him outside and letting the door drop closed behind them, Stiles wrapped his jacket tighter around himself and yelped when Theo wrapped an arm tightly around his waist.

“I hope you don’t mind, but you looked a bit cold,” Theo explained with a smile.

“I don’t mind at all, actually.” Stiles leaned closer into Theo’s embrace as they walked in the direction that Theo thought was the right one. And sure enough, mere minutes later they came to a stop in front of a small, yellow stand with the word ‘churros’ written above it. Stiles felt his mouth water just at the smell, even if ten minutes earlier he had been sure he’d never eat again. Desserts truly did wonders, it seemed.

Theo paid for the churros, despite Stiles insistence that it was his turn to pay, and led them over to an empty bench where they could sit and eat. Theo held the paper cone of churros between them so they could both easily reach them. Stiles finished his churro and spent a minute licking milk chocolate off his fingers.

When he looked up again, Theo was staring at his mouth. Stiles swallowed heavily and Theo blinked a few times at the sound, seemingly clearing his head and reaching for another fried pastry.

Once they were all gone, Theo got up and tossed the paper cone before sitting down again, this time wrapping an arm around Stiles’ shoulders. Stiles was once again licking chocolate from his fingers before wiping them on his jeans. They had to be washed soon anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal.

Once they were dry, Stiles stuck his hands into the pockets of his jacket to keep them warm, and leaned into Theo’s embrace. Even though he wasn’t a fan of winter, or cold weather in general, he had to admit that sitting outside like this with Theo was pretty nice.

“Are you cold?” Theo asked after a few minutes of comfortable silence.

Stiles shrugged. “Kind of,” he admitted sheepishly.

“That’s alright. Do you want me to walk you home? We could get some warmth in you, that way.”

“Won’t that be a long way for you then? I live quite a bit from the metro station we usually meet at.”

“That’s alright, I can just take the metro or get a cab or something. I want to walk you home, Stiles. I promise it won’t bother me.”

Stiles bit his lip nervously. “Okay, if you’re sure,” he said finally and stood up from the bench. He hadn’t noticed until then how cold he really felt, so it was nice to move his stiff limbs a bit.

The walk home went quicker than Stiles had thought, though he guessed that was mostly because of Theo keeping him company. Time seemed to pass much faster when he was with him, and he was grateful for that.

Once they reached Stiles’ building he stopped outside his door to say goodbye to Theo. “Well, this is me,” he said, gesturing to the building behind him.

Theo nodded. “I had a really good time tonight,” he said. “I’d like to do it again.”

“Me too. I could definitely get used to late night churros with you,” he joked, and Theo laughed.

“Don’t think I won’t make you pay for them too,” Theo teased back.

In the silence that followed, Stiles took a look behind himself, at the mostly dark windows of his building. “I guess I’d better get inside,” he said, and Theo nodded.

“Yeah, it’s late, you should get some sleep. But, before you go, I want to do this.” Stiles turned back just in time for Theo to gently grab his face in his hands and pull him down for a deep kiss. Stiles melted into the kiss, content to let Theo lead it.

When Stiles felt the stroke of Theo’s tongue against his bottom lip he opened his mouth and let Theo inside to explore freely. The kiss lasted for several minutes, neither of them ready to let the other go. When they finally broke apart, gasping for air, Stiles’ hands were cold again.

“That was some goodnight kiss,” Stiles whispered into Theo’s mouth, leaning his forehead against Theo’s as he caught his breath.

“I’ve been wanting to do that since the last time we kissed,” Theo confessed, and Stiles blushed.

“Me too. And that was really great, 10/10, A+, you get a gold star in kissing, Theo Raeken.”

Theo laughed quietly. “Thanks, and the same to you, Stiles Stilinski, gold star kisser.”

Stiles joined the laughter then, careful to keep it as quiet as possible in case any nosy neighbors were still awake. Stiles let Theo drag him back into another kiss, and didn’t resurface for another few minutes.

“Okay, I really have to go now,” Stiles mumbled into Theo’s lips where they were still kissing.

“Uh huh,” Theo said, not pulling away. Stiles laughed, and pushed at Theo’s face to get him to step back.

“If we don’t stop now, we’ll stay out here all night. And then we’ll die of hypothermia. Trust me, I did my fifth grade science project on it. I know my stuff.”

“I trust you,” Theo assured him, and finally pulled away completely.

“Text me when you get home, yeah?” Stiles asked, and Theo nodded.

“I will.”

“Good. Now go away so I can sleep.”

Theo laughed again, but did as he said, walking away, turning around once to see Stiles still standing there and waving at him. Stiles waved back, and stayed where he was for another minute before turning around and heading up the stairs to his door.

Once inside his apartment he quickly took his jacket off and toed off his shoes. Plugging his phone into its charger he went into the bathroom to take a shower. The hot water felt amazing on his chilled skin, doing wonders to warm him up and bring the feeling back to his fingers.

After a good 15 minutes under the hot water, Stiles turned the shower off and stepped out onto the bathroom floor, grabbing a clean towel and wrapping it around his waist before grabbing another one to towel dry his hair.

Stepping back out into his bedroom, Stiles pressed the home button on his phone and the screen lit up to show him a new message from Theo.

‘Just got home, safe and sound :) But, it turns out I have to go back to Boston tomorrow :( Probably wont be able to talk for a few days.’

Stiles smiled to himself as he typed out his answer.

‘Good to know you’re not dead in a ditch somewhere. Too bad about Boston, but I guess you have to do your job, right? I just got out of the shower, can finally feel my fingers again.’

The reply came quickly.

‘I bet you look great right now then ;)’

‘Ha ha, very funny, you perv, my hair looks like someone took a leaf blower to it.’

‘Sounds like that’s probably a good look on you.’

‘I don’t think that’s a good look on anyone.’

‘I think you’d be surprised at how others see you. You’re quite the looker, you know.’

‘You flatterer. Be careful, someone might think you just want to get in my pants ;)’

‘Oh, I definitely want to get in your pants, there’s no doubt about that.’

‘Oh yeah? Please tell me more about that.’

Stiles yawned loudly, and pressed a hand to his mouth. Putting his phone down, Stiles quickly changed into a pair of loose sweatpants and got into bed, picking up his phone again.

There was one new message waiting for him.

‘I’d love to, but I’m totally beat. But maybe I can make it up to you the next time I see you? With a more hands on approach, if you know what I mean?’

Stiles imagined Theo sitting in his apartment, waggling his eyebrows at his phone. The image made him laugh, which definitely put a stopper to the mood they had been building through their texts. But Theo was right, of course, and Stiles himself was probably just as tired as Theo, if not more.

‘Yeah, me too. I can’t wait for that hands on approach though ;)’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll make you feel good’

‘Ha ha, I don’t doubt it. Good night though, I’ll talk to you later. Get some sleep, and have a good flight. Text me when you get back?’

‘I will. Good night, Stiles :)’

The following night was Stiles and Scott’s bro bonding night. Their bonding nights usually included copious amounts of beer, pizza or other greasy fast foods that didn’t require any cutlery, and video games.

They were currently battling it out on Call of Duty, two half eaten pizzas and several empty cans of beer on the coffee table in front of them. They were in Scott’s apartment, much nicer and more spacious that Stiles’ own apartment was. And with a better selection of games, too.

“Hey,” Stiles said after getting blasted to pieces for the umpteenth time. “How are things going with that girl from the gun rink? Allison something, right?”

Scott nodded, drinking down a bit of his beer while they waited for the game to reset itself. “I got her number, the last time I was there,” Scott said, looking proud. “We’re going out next weekend.”

Stiles made a noise of excitement in the back of his throat, holding up his fist for Scott to bump. “My man!” he said, grinning widely.

Scott rolled his eyes but silently agreed to the fist bump. “And what about you? You had a second date with Theo, right? How did that go?”

Stiles grinned again. “It went well,” he said. “He had to go back to Boston for a few days for business, but he said he’d text me when he gets back. I think I really like him.” Scott was silent after Stiles’ confession.

“I’m glad,” he said eventually. “It’s been so long since the last guy you dated, I’m glad you’ve finally found someone new.”

“It hasn’t been that long,” Stiles insisted, even as he knew he was wrong. The last guy he’d been in a relationship with had been three years earlier, with Danny Mahealani, a fellow technical analyst who worked on another floor of the bureau. They had met on a case where they needed an extra pair of typing hands, and they had hit it off.

They’d gone on a few dates and found out they liked each other, so they had stuck with it. Their relationship had lasted for four months before they had both agreed that it wasn’t going to work out. They both worked too much, with too dark stuff, to be able to balance each other out.

Because while Danny didn’t regularly work with the kind of cases Stiles did, he saw his fair share of monstrous behavior. Danny deserved someone with a calmer lifestyle than Stiles; someone who wouldn’t have to leave at 4 am when he was suddenly called into the office.

 And from what Stiles had seen on Facebook, Danny had finally found someone like that. The ‘Danny Mahealani got engaged’ life update hadn’t hurt as much as Stiles had feared it would. But he was happy for him, he was. They had parted on good terms, and still met up sometimes for coffee. Stiles was pretty sure he’d be invited to the wedding.

Scott’s snort jolted him back from his memories. “Not that long? Your last relationship was three years ago. And when was the last time you got laid? Six months ago? With that guy from accounting? Yes, Stiles, it has been that long.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Fine, maybe it has been that long, but whatever. It finally looks like the tides have turned. Which means that this guy will be getting laid pretty soon.” Stiles waggled his eyebrows at Scott, who laughed.

“That’s the spirit,” Scott said, and pressed his controller to start the game again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr](http://illusemywords.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> Not too much happening in this chapter, but we'll get more action in the next one. 
> 
> As always, thanks to everyone who read, kudos'ed and commented!
> 
> The next chapter will be up on monday.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek meets Theo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, have some jealous!Derek

On Stiles’ third date with Theo, they ran into Derek. Theo had just gotten back from Boston, and had decided to take Stiles to an Italian restaurant, swearing that they had the best pasta in town. Stiles wasn’t disappointed. It was perfectly cooked, with just the right amount of resistance when he bit into it.

After finishing their meal and after reluctantly letting Theo pay the bill – “I asked you out, and you paid the last time. It’s only fair.” – they headed towards the exit. The door opened before Stiles could reach out and open it himself, and in came Derek.

Stiles stopped in his tracks. “Derek?” he asked, surprised.

Derek seemed equally surprised, while Theo waited patiently by Stiles’ side.

“What are you doing here?” Stiles frowned. Of course Derek went out to eat, it was a completely normal thing to do, but Stiles had never really seen Derek as normal, so it was kind of a shock.

“I’m having dinner with my sisters,” Derek said. “What are you doing here?”

It was then that Theo decided to grab Stiles’ hand and lace their fingers together. The contact jolted Stiles out of his shock and he gestured towards Theo. “I’m on a date. With Theo. I’ve told you about Theo, right?”

Theo smiled and reached his free hand towards Derek to shake it. Derek stared at Theo’s outstretched hand but didn’t make a move to lift his own. Theo eventually let his hand drop back to his side, but didn’t let his smile slip.

“Who’s this, babe?” Theo asked patiently. The nickname was definitely a new development, and Stiles wasn’t sure how he felt about it. There seemed to be a slight edge of jealousy to Theo’s voice, and Stiles didn’t know how he felt about that either.

“Oh, this is Derek. We work together,” he answered eventually. Theo nodded, seemingly satisfied with his answer.

“Well, why don’t we let Derek in so he can meet his sisters, and we can get on our way?” Theo asked, and Stiles nodded.

“Um, yeah, I’m sorry for keeping you. I guess I’ll see you at work?”

Derek nodded in response and Stiles stepped to the side so Derek could pass them.

Once they were outside in the cold air, Stiles took a deep breath. “Well, that was awkward,” Theo commented. Stiles frowned and looked at him.

“What? Why?”

Theo smiled indulgently, kind of like he was explaining something to a child. “Well, because he obviously has a crush on you,” he said, like it was the easiest thing in the world.

Stiles’ frown deepened. “What are you talking about? Derek doesn’t have a crush on me. That’s absurd.”

“Is it really? Did you see the way he looked at you? Or at me for that matter? He looked like he wanted to crush me in one of his hands. He’s either had a horrible day, or he has a crush on you, or both.”

“Trust me, Theo, that’s how he always looks. He doesn’t have a crush on me.” The whole idea seemed ludicrous to Stiles, who had never even entertained the idea that Derek might be interested in him.

“Or maybe he’s just always had a crush on you,” Theo argued back.

Stiles was starting to feel irritated. “Theo. Trust me. I know what Derek looks like when he likes someone, and that’s not it.”

“Maybe he’s jealous that I’m your boyfriend and he’s not.”

“Boyfriend, huh?” The word caught Stiles off guard enough for him to drop the argument. Theo shrugged.

“I mean, if you’re not interested in labelling whatever this is, I’m fine with that, but I thought that was where this was headed, yes.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m completely fine with where this is heading.” Stiles stopped Theo and turned to him, leaning in to kiss him. “How about we go back to your place?” Stiles asked breathlessly when they broke apart. “You can finally show me that hands on demonstration you talked about last week?”

Theo hummed thoughtfully to himself. “I’d love to,” he said, grinning. Leaning down for a second kiss, Theo opened his mouth, and Stiles quickly followed suit. They stayed like that, kissing, for a few more moments before breaking apart again. Theo still held Stiles’ hand in his own, and he used it to tug them along.

Stiles happily followed, feeling slightly lightheaded. Any thoughts he might have had about Derek were immediately gone from his head as they got closer to Theo’s apartment.

When they got inside, Stiles pulled off his jacket and hung it on the wall, while Theo walked inside and turned on the lights, revealing a cozy looking living room. The walls were bare, save for a small clock hanging on one wall.

“Sorry,” he said apologetically when he noticed Stiles looking around. “I haven’t had much time to decorate. I only moved in like, two months ago.”

Stiles smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry about it. As long as you have a bed and some lube and condoms I don’t really care about the rest of your place.”

Theo laughed and grabbed Stiles’ wrist, pulling him closer. His other arm went around Stiles’ back and settled at the back of his head. “Don’t worry, I have a perfectly comfortable bed.”

“Hmmm, why don’t you lead the way then? So we don’t waste any more time?”

“I’d love to.”

* * *

 

Stiles woke up in the middle of the night, Theo’s arms wrapped around his middle. It took a few seconds for his sleep addled brain to register that his phone was ringing. He untangled himself from Theo’s embrace, trying to be as careful as possible even though Theo was probably already awake.

Stiles stumbled towards the sound of his phone, crouching down on the floor to grasp around for his jeans. It was pitch dark in the room, but Stiles didn’t want to turn on the lights. Once he had located his jeans, he pulled his phone out and blinked down at the lit up screen. ‘Derek calling’.

Frowning at the screen, Stiles looked back to the bed, where Theo had gotten up on his elbows and was watching him, confused. “It’s work, I have to take this,” Stiles said apologetically.

Theo nodded, wrapping the covers tight around his waist and sitting up against the headboard. A quick look down at the screen showed Stiles that it was, shit, after 4 am. “Go back to sleep,” Stiles insisted and stepped outside, closing the bedroom door behind him.

Swiping his thumb across the screen, Stiles answered, bringing the phone up to his ear as he walked into the kitchen. Hopefully Theo would be able to go back to sleep.

“Why the fuck are you calling me at 4 am, Derek?” Stiles hissed. “This better be a work thing, or I’m going to murder you.”

“We need you to come in. There’s been a development on the Boston Reaper case.”

Rubbing his free hand across his eyes, Stiles sighed. “Fine.” He looked up at the clock on the oven. “I’ll be there soon.”

Hanging up, Stiles sighed heavily again, before heading back into the bedroom to gather up his clothes. Pulling on his boxers, Theo sat up. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“I have to go into work. Can’t really talk about it, but there’s been some new developments in a case we’re working on, and they apparently want us to get on it right away.”

Stiles pulled his jeans on, pulling up the zipper and doing up the button, before looking around the dimly lit room and looking for his socks. He found one on the floor by the window, and crouching down he found the other under a chair in the corner. Kneeling down and reaching his hand under the chair he grabbed it and pulled it on.

“Did you see where my shirt ended up?” Stiles asked, looking back at Theo.

“Check under the bed. I can’t say I paid much attention to your clothes other than to getting them off your body as quickly as possible.”

Stiles knelt down on the floor again and looked under the bed, and sure enough, he found his shirt there, a bit dusty and wrinkled but otherwise fine. He pulled it on over his undershirt and buttoned it quickly, sure that he missed a few buttons but not really caring all that much.

Once he looked more or less presentable, Stiles picked up his phone and stuck it in his pocket. Walking over to where Theo was still leaning against the headboard, he leaned down and pressed a quick kiss on his lips. “Go back to sleep. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Alright, let me know how the case goes, okay?”

“I will.”

With those last words, Stiles exited the bedroom again and closed the door behind himself. Pulling on his jacket and quickly doing up his shoes, Stiles left the apartment, waiting for the telltale click of the door closing behind him before he made his way down the stairs and out onto the street.

He walked swiftly to the metro stop where he had first met Theo and from there to the office, arriving there shortly after 4.25.

“How did you get here so quickly?” Derek asked when he exited the elevator. “Don’t you live like half an hour away?”

“I wasn’t home,” Stiles said, walking over to the coffee maker and pouring himself a cup.

“Were you at Theo’s?” Derek asked, having followed him over to the machine. He sounded irritated.

Turning around, Stiles pinned Derek with a pointed look. “As a matter of fact, I was. Do you have a problem with that? Do you have a problem with me spending the night, or, half the night is more like it, at my boyfriend’s place?”

“I don’t like him, Stiles. He seems really shady. Do you see the way he looks at you? Like you’re a prize he just won at the carnival, or like he wants to eat you. It creeps me out. I don’t think he’s a good guy.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes. “The way he looks at me? He looks at me like he likes me, like he enjoys having me around. He treats me like a fucking human being and not like a machine made to do what he wants.”

“He looks at you like he wants to lock you in his basement and keep you there for the next ten years!”

Stiles put his coffee down and took two steps closer to Derek, getting close enough to hear his breathing.

“Where the fuck do you get off insulting my boyfriend like that? You don’t even know him, you’ve barely met him. You have no evidence to support your accusations, so fuck off and let me live my life.” By now he has raised his voice, not quite screaming but definitely loud enough to catch the attention of the other people in the office.

“I’m trained to study behavior in people, Stiles, it’s my job. I know how people like Theo think, and trust me, he’s not good for you. Why won’t you see that? And you claim you know him? You’ve been on, what? Three dates? You don’t know shit, Stiles. You know exactly what he wants you to know, and nothing more.”

“You know what I think, Derek? I think you’re just jealous. I think you’re jealous because I finally have an opportunity to be happy, and you haven’t met anyone since Braeden. Just because someone finally wants me and not you. Well, newsflash, Derek, just because you’re tall and strong and muscly and I’m not that doesn’t make me the ugly duckling. It is actually possible for people to want me too.”

By now Kira and Erica had made their way over and were standing a few steps behind Derek, looking unsure about what they should do.

“Jealous? You think I’m jealous of you and Theo? I could definitely do better than that creepy asshole, and so can you, Stiles. I never said you were ugly, because you’re not, but I think you can do better than him. I know you can do better than him.” Derek’s voice was quieter now, almost defeated.

“You don’t know him,” Stiles said quietly, all the fight draining out of him at last, leaving him feeling even more tired than he had before Derek had started talking to him. The exhaustion of the night was finally catching up with him, and he picked up his discarded coffee cup, taking a long sip as he closed his eyes and tried to calm himself.

He stared at Derek, waiting for him to say something else, but he didn’t. He merely held Stiles’ gaze for a few seconds before breaking eye contact and walking away, past Kira and Erica, ignoring them completely.

Stiles sighed, closing his eyes again. He didn’t want to fight with Derek, he never wanted to fight with Derek. Steps approached slowly, and Stiles opened his eyes to see Scott looking at him, a gentle expression on his face. He must have come up with the elevator sometime during Stiles and Derek’s fight.

Stiles sighed heavily. “How much of that did you hear?” he asked.

“Around the time where you accused Derek of being jealous of your relationship with Theo. I think I heard most of it.”

Stiles nodded. “Yeah, you probably did. I stayed the night at Theo’s,” Stiles explained. “Derek wasn’t exactly happy when he heard.”

“Yeah, he didn’t sound like it,” Scott agreed.

“I just don’t get why he doesn’t trust my judgment? He met Theo for like, two minutes, tops, there’s no way he could have learned much from those two minutes alone. At least not more than I’ve learned from three dates and loads of texting. They didn’t even talk together. He just glared at Theo while I talked to him. And then, after we left, Theo suggested that Derek has a crush on me. Which is ridiculous, honestly.”

Scott bit his lip, as if unsure about what to say. “Are you sure about that, Stiles? I mean, you said it yourself, it’s not insane to think that people would want you. Derek could be one of those people.”

Damn Scott for sounding so reasonable. “If he has a crush on me then why didn’t he tell me?” Stiles asked, stubborn.

“I’m not saying he does. I don’t know how he feels, obviously, but I’m just saying. It’s not impossible. You do flirt with him a lot, calling him babe and sourwolf and all those little nicknames you have for him. I’ve never heard you call me babe, for instance. It might be why he’s so against you and Theo. He might be seeing signs of Theo being a bad guy because he wants him to be. But, this is something you need to talk to him about, not me.”

“And besides, I seem to remember you being quite enamored with him for a while too, back when you just started working here. The night you found out he was bi you nearly choked on your kung pao chicken,” Scott continued with a smile.

Stiles smiled fondly at the memory, despite it being very embarrassing at the time. Derek had looked at him like he wasn’t sure if he should be in charge of feeding himself. Stiles had coughed somewhat discreetly – which is to say not discreetly at all – into a napkin and tried to play the whole thing off. He was pretty sure Derek would have thought he was homophobic or something, if he didn’t already know that Stiles himself was also bisexual.

“Well, yeah, but that was years ago,” Stiles insisted.

Scott opened his mouth to argue more, but Kira cleared her throat behind Scott’s back and told them that Deaton was ready and that everyone should come to the briefing room.

Stiles and Scott quickly followed Kira and entered the briefing room. Scott had planned to get into his regular seat, but he found that Derek sat there now, instead of in his regular seat next to Stiles. Stiles ignored Derek and sat down, making no indication that he cared where Derek sat.

“So, as you’ve all probably heard there’s been a development in the Boston Reaper case. A new victim was found tonight, just after 3 am. They want us to come to Boston immediately, before this escalates more than it already has. They’re fairly certain that it’s not a copycat, but they want us to help them make sure.”

“We’ve already been over this though, the original profile states that our killer would be a white male in his mid 30s to early 40s. He’d be in his 70s now,” Erica pointed out.

Deaton nodded, looking way too calm for someone talking about a serial killer. But then, he had been doing this for years, so Stiles supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that he wasn’t as affected by it anymore. Stiles though? He hated looking at those pictures, learning about the victims.

“Yes, the working theory is that it’s not a copycat, but an apprentice of some sort. Someone who worked with the original Boston Reaper. Someone who learned from him.”

Stiles shuddered, thinking about Theo walking around Boston with that psychopathic killer on the loose. The mere thought made him nervous. But, now the BAU were on the case, and Stiles knew that if anyone could catch this guy and solve this 30-year-old mystery, it was his team. The thought of that helped him calm down again, in time to get back into the conversation.

“Stiles, you stay here and look into the victims.” Stiles nodded. To be honest, Stiles was grateful that they weren’t going to need him at the field office. He kind of needed a break from Derek for a little while.

“Wheels up in an hour, go pack your things.” With those final words, the team got up from their seats and started moving around in the office outside. Stiles went into his office and started running some of his programs before going back out to say goodbye to his team.

“I’ll call you guys on the plane if I find anything,” Stiles promised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Next chapter on Thursday


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles was leaning back in his chair, twirling a pen in his hands, waiting for his programs to finish running, when his phone rang, and he nearly tipped the chair backwards, pen flying across the room. Waving his arms wildly he managed to tip the chair forwards and back onto the ground. Trying to catch his breath and calm his hammering heart, Stiles put his phone on speaker. “What’s up?” he asked breathlessly.
> 
> The person on the other side of the line started to speak, and then stopped. “Are you okay?” Lydia asked, sounding worried.
> 
> “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. The only danger here is myself,” Stiles reassured her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has some Derek POV.

Stiles was leaning back in his chair, twirling a pen in his hands, waiting for his programs to finish running, when his phone rang, and he nearly tipped the chair backwards, pen flying across the room. Waving his arms wildly he managed to tip the chair forwards and back onto the ground. Trying to catch his breath and calm his hammering heart, Stiles put his phone on speaker. “What’s up?” he asked breathlessly.

The person on the other side of the line started to speak, and then stopped. “Are you okay?” Lydia asked, sounding worried.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. The only danger here is myself,” Stiles reassured her. “What do you need?”

“I need you to find out anything you can about Gerard Argent. So far, all anyone can tell us is that he was found dead like, a year ago, so obviously we can’t find and interview him, but maybe he was in contact with his family or something? We’re kind of grasping at straws here.”

“Okay, I’ll see what I can find,” Stiles promised, and immediately ran a search cross checking any Argent family members with Gerard Argent’s last known locations and property.

* * *

“Okay, guys, this is what I’ve found, but let me tell you, it’s not a lot. Gerard Argent, died last year, 76 years old at the county hospital of complications following a surgery he had trying to correct some of the damage the Reaper did to him. He had two children, Chris and Kate Argent. Chris Argent is married to Victoria Argent, and they have one daughter, Allison Argent. The lived in Boston until 2007, when they moved to – D.C. Their daughter, Allison, lives in – oh, Quantico, Virginia. Kate Argent still lives in Boston, as far as I can tell, and now runs Argent Arms.”

“After Argent was attacked in 1980, once he got out of the hospital, he signed over Argent Arms to his children, Chris and Kate, who then ran it together until –. They ran it together until 8 years ago, when Chris Argent signed over his part of the company to his sister after, uh, after I hacked their systems and exposed them for animal cruelty. After that Chris and his family moved to D.C., wanting to distance themselves from the company.”

“But, okay, after he was released from the hospital, Gerard basically vanished. He disappeared, went completely off the grid, which, let me tell you, is not an easy thing to do. No credit cards, no cellphones, no apartments, no contracts, basically nothing registered in his name.”

Stiles took a deep breath before continuing. “But, I figured that he might have tried to stay in contact with his children and grandchildren, so I double checked both their cellphone bills, and I found three names that overlapped. Kevin Baskin, Miles Holden and William Parker. The thing is, those people don’t exist, not in the Boston area anyway, so I figured that they might be Argent’s aliases. I mean, if he wanted to disappear he obviously wasn’t going to use his own name, but three different names seem kind of excessive to me. But I guess after getting stabbed that many times and surviving I’d be a bit paranoid too.”

“So, back on track, Kate Argent called those three numbers regularly right up until November of last year, when Gerard died. Chris Argent also used the numbers, but not as regularly as Kate, so I think she’s your best bet at finding out any info about this guy.”

“Alright,” Deaton said. “Thank you, Stiles, we’ll call you when we need something else, okay?”

“Yeah, you do that. I’ll let you know if I find something else.” Stiles hung up and went back to typing.

* * *

Derek stared intently at the board in front of him. Pictures of the victims were hung up to create a rough timeline of both the original Reaper murders and the new ones. Sharpie lines connected them, and little bits of information were written under and around the pictures of victims, evidence and crime scenes. Derek felt like it was something he was missing. Or someone. Maybe Kate Argent could shed some light on the situation. That is, if they could find her.

According to the secretary they had talked to at Argent Arms, Kate was out of town for business, and had been since before the newest victims were found. He was tempted to call Stiles and ask if he had any new leads on her location, but he wasn’t quite ready to talk to him yet.

He knew he shouldn’t have meddled in Stiles’ personal life. He had no right to tell him who he should and should not be dating, but he really did have a bad feeling about Theo. There was something about him that just didn’t sit right, and Derek had always been one to trust his gut.

But he also wanted to trust Stiles’ judgment, and he obviously didn’t want to come in the way of his happiness. So he decided to keep an eye on Theo if they ever met again, and in the meantime, trust that Stiles was capable of taking care of himself.

Derek shook his head lightly, trying to stop himself from thinking about Theo. He really needed to get back on track. He refocused on the board and tried to find some hidden connection. There had to be something he was missing.

Finally, Derek swallowed his pride and fished his phone out of his pocket. Dialing Stiles’ number, he sighed heavily and closed his eyes.

“You’ve reached Stiles Stilinski in the FBI’s Office of Supreme Genius, how may I be of service today?” Stiles answered, sounding completely unfazed by the fight he had had with Derek mere hours earlier. Stiles had always been good at hiding his feelings, though, so maybe it wasn’t that strange.

“Hey, Stiles, it’s Derek,” he said, purposefully keeping his voice as calm as possible.

“Oh, hi, Derek,” Stiles said, suddenly sounding a lot less enthusiastic.

“I, uh, just wanted to hear if you had any leads on Kate Argent’s location yet? I know if anyone can find out where she is, it’s you.”

There was a second of silence on the other side of the line. “Flattery won’t get you anywhere today, Derek, I’m still mad at you. Although, of course, you’re right, I’m going to have to disappoint you. It seems Kate was expecting us to come looking, so she turned her cellphone off and withdrew 1000 dollars in cash at the bank three days ago. She probably learned some of those tricks from her father.”

Derek frowned. “But why would she try to hide from us? That must mean she knows something, but she’s too young to be the original killer. Does that mean she’s the apprentice? I mean, I guess it’s possible, but then she would still have to know the original killer, the man who nearly killed her father. And we already established that she has an alibi for most of the murders, even if, for some reason, she’s avoiding us now.”

“Maybe she just doesn’t want to answer questions about her father?” Stiles suggested. “I mean, he did just die a year ago. It might still be too soon. They did keep in touch and talk on the phone a lot. They probably met up as well.”

“Well, sure, but still. Why wouldn’t she meet with us if she didn’t have anything to hide? It just seems too suspicious to me. Let us know if you dig up something else on her, okay?”

Derek glanced behind himself at where Lydia, Scott and Erica were sitting, along with one of the officers from the local PD. Taking Stiles off speaker, Derek stepped out into the hallway.

“Yeah, I’ll let you know,” Stiles promised.

Before he could hang up, Derek spoke up. “And Stiles?”

“Yeah?”

“I – I just wanted to say – I’m sorry for what I said, earlier. I know it’s not any of my business who you go out with. I shouldn’t have tried to meddle in it just because I don’t like him. I trust your judgment.”

Heavy silence hung between them for a few seconds before Stiles coughed on the other line. “Um, thanks,” he said. “I – I really appreciate you saying that. It means a lot. And, okay, I’m sorry about what I said too. It was really out of line. I shouldn’t have said all those things about you being jealous of me and Theo. That was a really low blow.”

Derek smiled, glad to have that out of the way. It had been really weighing him down, keeping him from focusing on the case at hand. “So,” he said, feeling hopeful. “Are you still mad at me?”

“I suppose not. Everything’s back to normal, sweet cheeks. I’ll talk to you later. Go catch the bad guys okay?”

Derek laughed. “Yeah, sure thing. I’ll talk to you later.” Hanging up, Derek pocketed his phone and headed back into the conference room they were using.

“Did Stiles forgive you?” Scott asked, not looking up from the file he was reading.

“Yeah, I think we’re cool,” Derek said, smiling. “Have you found anything yet?”

Scott shook his head. He looked frustrated beyond belief. “I think we might have to try contacting some of his other relatives. He had a son too, right?” Scott picked up a notepad lying on the table, flipping through it, presumably looking for information about Gerard’s family.

“And a granddaughter,” Derek added. “Who lives in Quantico. Allison Argent, I think.”

Scott stopped suddenly, the notepad held tightly in his hands. “Oh, no. Hold on. Just, just wait, okay? I have to check something.” Derek frowned, not sure why Scott was freaking out.

He watched as Scott pulled his phone out and swiped his thumb across the screen to unlock it. Opening up his contacts and pressing the name ‘Allison’, Derek finally started to understand.

“Allison?” Scott asked into the phone, putting it on speaker for the benefit of Derek and everyone else in the room. “Hey, it’s Scott. Is your name Allison Argent? I’m sorry, but it’s very important. You’re on speaker phone.”

“Scott? What are you talking about?”

“Please just answer the question Allison,” Scott pleaded, pinching his nose with his free hand.

“Um, yes, my last name is Argent, but if this has anything to do with my family’s company I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“Your father is Chris Argent? Your grandfather is Gerard Argent? You were born in Boston? Jesus, how didn’t I see this sooner?”

“Yes, Chris is my dad and Gerard was my grandfather. Scott, what is this about? Gerard died a year ago.”

“Did you have any contact with Gerard, Allison? Did you ever talk to him?”

“Um, no, we didn’t really keep in touch after we moved. I think my dad might have talked to him a few times, but I’m not sure. We didn’t really talk about it much. Now, Scott, will you please just tell me what this is about?”

“You remember I told you I’m an FBI agent right? Our team is in Boston right now, investigating the murders that have been happening here lately. We think the murderer might have a connection to the Boston Reaper case that happened 30 years ago. The person your grandfather was a victim of.”

The other end of the line was silent for a long while before Scott quietly said: “Allison? Are you still there?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m here, I’m just kind of shocked. I didn’t even think that there could be a connection to the Boston Reaper. So is this like, a copycat? Someone mimicking the Reaper?”

“Not exactly. We think this is someone who knew him. His apprentice, if you will. We’ve been trying to get in touch with Kate Argent, your aunt, since it seems like she was the one who kept in touch with your grandfather the most, but she seems to have disappeared. Do you have any idea where we might find her?”

“No, I’m really sorry, I don’t. But I think there might be someone else you can ask. I think I remember my dad mentioning something about my grandfather being friends or something with this young kid. I have no idea why or how they met or what they even did together, but I got the impression that the kid helped him out in the house and stuff like that. Kept him company. I can’t remember his name, but maybe my dad could help you? He was a few years younger than me I think, somewhere in his early twenties probably.”

“Okay, thanks for the info Allison. I’m sorry about this. If you want to cancel our date next week, I totally understand.” Scott sounded so sad, Derek almost felt like he shouldn’t be listening to their conversation.

“No, no, it’s okay, you’re just doing your job. I’m just glad I could help. I’ll um, talk to you later? Say hello to your team from me. Or, I guess, if I’m on speaker they can hear me. So, yeah, I’ll talk to you later.”

Scott let out a long breath, cracking a small smile as he looked down on his phone. “Yeah, of course. I’ll text you when I get home.” Scott hung up and put his phone down.

“So,” Derek began. “I guess we have to talk to Chris Argent and figure out who this kid is, and if he knows anything. Though I don’t understand how Gerard made friends while also being paranoid as hell and hiding from the world.”

“I guess even paranoid people make friends. And it’s not like a kid in his twenties could be the person who attacked him 30 years ago. Maybe that’s why he felt he could trust him.”

“Yeah, maybe. I still feel like there’s something missing though. Something we’re not seeing.”

* * *

Stiles was spinning around in his chair, waiting for an epiphany to hit him to help him solve the case. He knew that wasn’t likely to happen, but honestly, he was bored. And he knew being bored while investigating a murder case was probably horribly insensitive to the victims and their families, but Stiles couldn’t help it.

Just as he thought he was actually about to perish from not having anything to do, his phone vibrated in his pocket, indicating that he had a new message. Grabbing his phone from his pocket, Stiles grinned when he saw that it was from Theo.

‘Hey, babe, how’s the case going? Solved any murders yet?’

Stiles shook his head with a huff of laughter and typed out his answer.

‘You know I can’t discuss ongoing cases with you. I’ve told you this.’

‘Yeah, I know, I was just teasing you. Do you want to grab lunch?’

Stiles bit his lip, unsure of how to answer. On one hand, he knew he couldn’t really leave the building, not when the team might need him. But on the other hand, he hadn’t really had anything to do for a while now, and if they called him he could always just tell Theo to leave. Still, it was risky. Making up his mind, Stiles shook his head to himself as he typed out his answer.

‘Sorry, I can’t really go out right now.’

‘I could come to you.’

Stiles frowned.

‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’

‘Oh, come on, no one has to know. It’ll be our little secret.’

Why was Theo suddenly so adamant about seeing him? Couldn’t he just take no for an answer?

‘I really can’t, Theo. I have to work. I might be able to do a late dinner tonight, but I can’t promise anything. I’ll text you later.’

‘Okay.’

Frowning, Stiles put his phone away just as his desktop phone rang. “Perfect timing,” Stiles mumbled to himself. “Maybe they’ll finally give me something to do.”

“Yo, please tell me you need me to do something, anything, please, I’m bored out of my mind.” Scott never disappointed.

“I know this might be a long shot, Stiles, but we need you to go back to the phone records and try to find someone other than Kate and Chris who might have called him regularly. It would be a man, in his early to mid twenties. He had been helping Gerard out around the house before he died.”

“I’ll see what I can find, but I can’t promise you anything. Even if Gerard was a paranoid recluse, he might have had more than one acquaintance. And besides, we have no guarantee that this guy even called him. But yeah, I’ll let you know if I find anything. Wish, you; command, me. Stiles out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who read, kudos'ed and commented! You make posting this so much fun!
> 
> My [tumblr](http://illusemywords.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Next chapter on Monday
> 
> I also feel like I shuld point out that in this AU Derek has never met Kate or any of the Argents.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We’re ready to give the profile.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for panic attacks, vomiting and fainting.
> 
> Also, we start out with Derek's POV and then switch to Stiles'.

“We’re ready to give the profile,” Deaton told the local chief of police, who nodded and went to gather his people. A few minutes later, word had spread and most of the department were standing ready with notebooks and pens, ready to take notes on the information the team presented them with.

“The original Reaper fits a profile we refer to as an omnivore,” Deaton began, voice loud and clear. “Unlike most serial killers, an omnivore doesn’t target a specific victim type, although he tended to focus on his younger, female victims with his knife. He essentially was a predator, who would kill anyone.  This is because his kills weren’t just about his victims. He needed recognition. He needed us to know.”

As he paused, Scott took over, continuing where Deaton had left off. “Now, our new killer doesn’t have the same interest in the media. He doesn’t seem to be as intent on getting recognition as the original Reaper was. We think this is because the one he really wants recognition from is the Reaper himself. By now, the Reaper will be too old to continue the murders himself, if he’s not already dead. This is why he has an apprentice, and this apprentice will do anything he can to please his mentor.”

“While the Reaper’s apprentice doesn’t have the same interest in the media that the Reaper did, he has gone to great lengths to replicate another of the Reaper’s interests. Like the Reaper, his apprentice pays special attention to his younger, female victims. If this is something he does because he shares the Reaper’s need to use stabbing as a substitute for physical penetration, or if he simply does it to get the Reaper’s approval, we don’t know. But we think this might be our key to catching him.” Deaton pause, taking a deep breath before continuing.

“Look for men with access and authority. High School teachers, councilors, coaches, and anyone who were charged with sex crimes against teenage girls in the 70s or 80s. If you find someone like that, check for younger men in his life; children and grandchildren, students, nurses, stuff like that. That's all for now, thank you.”

Erica had come into the room about halfway through them presenting the profile, and was staring intently at Deaton. Once the room was dismissed, Deaton, and the rest of the team, walked over to hear what she had to say. “Stiles may have found something,” she said, and they all followed her into the conference room, where Stiles was on speaker.

“Okay, guys, so I was looking into Gerard’s aliases earlier, right, and I found something weird. I heard you say that in your original profile the Reaper was most likely in a position of power, high school teacher, councilor, that kind of thing. Well, all of Gerard’s aliases were high school principals, and one of them, Miles Holden, was suspended for inappropriate behavior towards a female student.”

“So Gerard was the Reaper?” Derek asked, even as all the pieces seemed to come into place in his head. It made sense. It fucking made sense, and he hated that he hadn’t seen it earlier.

“Did we manage to contact Chris Argent about who Gerard’s friend was?” Deaton asked, looking intently at all of them.

“No, I’m afraid not,” Kira said, shaking her head. “I’ve been trying to contact him all day, with no luck.”

“I can try the numbers again, if you want. Maybe I missed something,” Stiles said over the phone.

“Yes, do that, Stiles, he might have used different numbers, like Gerard did.”

“Alright, I’m going to try something different. I’ll cross check the cell towers the different calls came from and see if any of the numbers bounced off the same ones. Give me a second while I type, and, yes! Okay, so there are three numbers that called more than once each that bounced off the same cell towers. The numbers belong to Cody Christian, Peter Malarky and – wait. No, this can’t be right. No. No.”

“What happened, Stiles? Who is it?” Derek asked urgently.

Stiles didn’t answer immediately, which worried Derek even more. He rarely heard silence from Stiles.

“Theo Raeken,” Stiles finally whispered, sounding more shocked than Derek had ever heard him.

“Theo Raeken?” Erica asked. “Your boyfriend?”

On the other end, Stiles whimpered pitifully.

“Stiles, I need you to focus,” Deaton said intently. “Do you think he might have been the one to take the pictures too?”

Derek’s head snapped up from where he had been staring at the phone. “What pictures?” he asked.

“Someone has been taking pictures of Stiles in his everyday life and sending them to his apartment. Do you think it could have been Theo, Stiles?”

“I – I don’t know. I don’t know,” Stiles answered, voice shaking. “We met at random. I swear I had never seen him before.”

Stiles had never sounded so vulnerable before. Derek wished desperately that he could be there to hug him.

“Stiles, listen to me. This is very important. Have you talked to Theo today?”

“I spent the night with him. Oh god, oh god, we had sex. I think I’m going to be sick.” Stiles’ voice faded from the phone as a retching sound replaced it.

* * *

 Stiles sat up from where he had been bent over the trashcan, wiping his mouth even as he continued to hyperventilate.

“Stiles? Stiles are you alright?” came Scott’s worried voice from the phone, slightly tinny from the volume he was speaking at.

Stiles shook his head and desperately tried to form words and calm his breathing. He hadn’t had a panic attack like this in years, but he figured that finding out his boyfriend had been stalking him for months and was also a serial killer probably warranted that kind of reaction.

“Call Danny, he should still be at the office.” Scott’s voice sounded like it was far away, almost as if he was speaking in a tunnel. Black spots started to appear on the edges of Stiles’ vision. His head was swimming; he couldn’t catch a breath.

He tried to get up but felt his knees buckle under him as he rose. He fell to his knees, desperately clutching his chest. He could hear someone calling for him but he couldn’t make out the words. Just as he felt himself slip from consciousness he saw the door to his office open.

* * *

 When Stiles came to, there was a bright light shining in his eyes. He was flat on his back in his office. His head throbbed painfully and he closed his eyes to block out the light.

“Stiles,” someone said from beside him, and Stiles turned his head and reopened his eyes to find Danny sitting beside him holding a bottle of water.

“Danny?” Stiles said, voice sounding hoarse and shaky as he sat up carefully. “What are you doing here?”

“Scott called me, asked me to check in on you because they were all gone on a case and you were having a panic attack. I found you passed out on the floor. I don’t think you hit your head or anything, but that seemed like a pretty bad panic attack. Do you want to tell me what happened?”

Stiles shook his head, but accepted the water bottle Danny handed him, unscrewing the cork and trying to keep his hands from shaking. He failed. Holding the bottle up to his lips he drank greedily. Panic attacks always left him exhausted and dehydrated, especially when it was as bad as the one he had just gone through.

“How long was I out for?” he asked once the bottle was empty.

“Not long. A minute, maybe less. Do you need me to get you anything? Some more water or something to eat or, what?”

Stiles shook his head. “Thanks, but no, I’m fine.” Danny shot him a pointed look. “I will be fine, just give me a few minutes.”

Stiles fell silent, thinking about the things he had just learned. Theo was the Reaper’s apprentice. He was more than likely also the one stalking Stiles. The mere thought made Stiles feel sick again, which made him thankful he had nothing but water in his stomach.

“I – I should probably call my team,” Stiles said eventually, getting up off the floor on shaky legs and walking over to his desk to grab the phone. “To let them know I’m alright. They probably need me.”

“Are you though?” Danny asked quietly as Stiles lowered himself into his office chair. “Are you alright?”

Stiles didn’t say anything as he dialed Derek’s number.

“Hello? Stiles?” Derek said once he picked up. “How are you feeling?”

“Not that great, I have to admit,” Stiles said honestly.

“I know you’re still shocked, Stiles,” Deaton said. “But this is important. If Theo tries to contact you, if he wants to meet up, tell him you don’t feel well.”

“I won’t even have to lie about that,” Stiles muttered.

“Tell him you’re not up for company,” Deaton continued, ignoring Stiles. “I don’t care what it takes, but you do not meet up with him. Not until we’re back. We’ve talked to the local PD., and while we’re working to make sure Theo is still in Quantico, they agree that the best place for us to be right now is there. We will continue working from there, making sure you’re safe and that Theo can’t get to you. Because, and I hate having to say this, but it’s true, once Theo finds out that we know, he will come after you, Stiles. Our goal is to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“And what if you can’t find him? What do we do then?” Stiles asked, feeling defeated. An uncomfortable silence followed his words, and Stiles could clearly picture the stares the team shared on the other side of the phone line.

Stiles spun around and looked at Danny, who looked like he was trying to piece together what they were talking about. He looked like he was doing a good job of it too. Danny had always been too observant for his own good.

“Then we make sure you’re safe,” Scott said finally. “We’ll have someone with you at all times until we catch him. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Stiles.”

“Me neither,” Erica said softly. “I need my batman.”

“We all need you, Stiles,” Derek said earnestly. There was a strange tone to his words that Stiles couldn’t quite place. He had never heard Derek sound like that before.

“Me too,” Danny said from behind him. “I may not know the details of what happened, or what this case is about, but I want to help, any way I can.”

Stiles felt his throat close up and he knew his eyes shone with unshed tears. He didn’t know what to say.

“I –,” he began. He wanted to thank them, wanted to tell them how much they all meant to him, but the words were stuck in his throat, refusing to come out. He opened his mouth to speak once more, but all that came out was a small sob. That seemed to be the breaking point, the events of the night finally catching up with him.

Danny was on him in a second, pulling him out of the chair and into a bone crushing hug. Stiles cried loudly into Danny’s shirt, knowing that he was probably getting tears all over it, but he didn’t know how to stop. It was like a dam had broken inside him, and now everything was just flooding out of him, all at once.

He didn’t know how long they stood there. He knew Danny spoke soft words to him but he couldn’t make out the meaning. Once or twice he spoke up, presumably to tell the team what was going on, but Stiles paid no attention to him, or what the team answered. He barely noticed Danny hanging up the phone. He focused all his energy on the strong arms around him, keeping him grounded and whole. He knew that if Danny let go, he would fall apart, and he wasn’t sure if he was strong enough right now to pick up the pieces and put himself back together. Not without help.

But apparently he would have help, from Danny, from his team. He wouldn’t be alone in this. He knew it would take a lot of time before he started to feel normal again, but at least he wouldn’t have to be alone. The thought made him feel better, and a few minutes later he untangled himself from Danny’s hug and accepted the tissue he handed him, wiping his face.

“I’m sorry about your shirt,” Stiles said, sniffling quietly and gesturing to the wet spot on Danny’s chest.

Danny shrugged. “Don’t worry about it, I never really liked this shirt anyway.”

Stiles’ mouth twitched into a small smile at that. “Liar,” he said, and Danny laughed.

“Alright, you caught me. But it’s fine, honestly. I have a spare shirt down at the office.”

Stiles nodded. “Do you want to go change? I’ll be fine alone for a few minutes.”

Danny shook his head. “Nah, don’t worry about it. It’s okay. I think I’m just gonna stay here with you.”

“Won’t Jeremy be worried if you don’t come home?”

“He’s used to me working long hours, and I already texted him. He won’t wait up for me.”

Stiles hummed thoughtfully at that. “So, how are the wedding preparations going? Have you decided on a date yet?”

“They’re going good, but the date is still undecided. He wants a spring wedding, but I want a summer one. He’s scared that the humidity is going to ruin his hair.” Danny laughed quietly, and Stiles smiled.

“I’m really happy for you, you know that right? You seem to work really great together.”

Danny returned Stiles’ smile. “Yeah, I really love him. I hope you find someone like that too.”

Stiles tried and failed to keep Derek’s face from popping up, but didn’t say anything. And if Danny noticed the look on his face, he didn’t say anything either.

“The team are flying out tonight, so they should be back here in a few hours,” Danny said softly. “I can stay with you until then, and then I guess one of them are gonna stay with you? Has Theo contacted you?”

“Um, I don’t think so, but I haven’t checked my phone, so he might have. Hold on.”

Fishing his phone out of his pocket, Stiles’ heart sank into his stomach when he saw he had three unread messages. Luckily, only one of them were from Theo. One was from Scott – ‘Don’t worry buddy, we’re gonna catch him.’ – and one was from Derek – ‘Stay safe. We’ll be back by 10.’. The last one was from Theo, and it read: ‘Sorry for being pushy earlier, I just wanted to see you. Do you want to come back to my place tonight?’

Stiles swallowed heavily, looking up at Danny. “Yeah, he texted me. Wants to know if I wanna go his place tonight.”

Danny nodded. “Alright. Just tell him you’re too tired to hang out, that you need some alone time. Tell him you’ll see him tomorrow.”

“I – I don’t know if I can do that. I don’t know if I can pretend like everything is alright when I know what he is.” Stiles felt his breath quicken just at the thought that he would have to be alone with Theo.

“Okay, okay, just calm down. That’s just for now, alright? Just tell him that, and we can figure out what to say tomorrow. You don’t have to see him again; I’ll make sure of it. And your team will make sure of it. They’ll arrest him, and you never have to see him again. Don’t worry.”

Danny’s words did help him calm down a little bit, but he couldn’t stop worrying. Even after he had sent the text, he worried that something would go wrong, that they wouldn’t be able to arrest Theo, or that he would somehow get set free. What if the charges didn’t stick? Did they have enough evidence? What if he didn’t confess? What if he had a really good lawyer? Stiles couldn’t stop thinking about it. He had so many questions. How had he not noticed that something was wrong with Theo? He worked at the FBI, he had always thought he would be able to know. But no, Theo had fooled him. He hadn’t even had a clue.

And Derek – Derek had warned him, had told him that Theo wasn’t a good guy. And Stiles had yelled at him. Stiles had told him to mind his own business, that he had no idea what Theo was like, that he was just jealous. Oh god. Derek had warned him, and he hadn’t listened. And now here he was, on the back end of one panic attack and working himself into a new one.

“Okay, Stiles, look at me,” Danny said, stepping in front of his chair and leaning down with his hands on each armrest, so they were eye to eye mere inches from each other. Danny grabbed Stiles’ hands and put one over Stiles’ heart and one over his own. “Feel that, Stiles? Feel my breath.” Stiles focused on the motion of his hand moving up and down as Danny’s chest moved. “Breathe with me. In and out, in and out. Come on, Stiles, you can do it.”

Stiles did as Danny said and focused his breathing to Danny’s own slow one, and it did actually help him calm down. It gave him something to focus on and took his mind off what was happening, while also helping him keep his breathing slow and even. A few minutes later, Stiles let his hands drop off Danny’s chest as well as his own, feeling more in control of himself.

“Thank you, Danny,” Stiles said, looking down at his hands. They were still shaking. “You don’t have to stay with me, you know. You can go home to Jeremy if you want to. I’ll be fine on my own. Besides, the team will be here soon.”

Danny shook his head. “Stiles, I’m not gonna leave you here alone. And I already told you, Jeremy already knows I’m gonna be late. I don’t care if I have to stay here for 5 more minutes or 5 hours, I’m not leaving you.”

“But –“

“No buts. I’m not leaving, so get used to having me here.”

Stiles laughed and couldn’t keep a small smirk from his face. “No butts, eh? That’s not what you used to say when we were dating.”

Danny rolled his eyes, but smiled. “That! That right there is the Stiles I know and love. The sarcastic little shit with a dirty mouth. Good to have you back again.” He paused for a beat. “You know, I’ve missed hanging out with you. We used to have so much fun together. We should get together some time, get a drink or something.”

Stiles smiled. “I’d like that. We should go to that shot bar over on Jefferson street, where we celebrated your birthday that one year? You remember it right?”

“Vaguely. That whole night is kind of a blur.”

“Well, that was kind of the goal, wasn’t it? I think you stole a bunch of shots from some strangers at another table, if I remember correctly. It was hilarious.”

“Oh, yeah, and you stole that dog poop sign. ‘Pick up after your dog.’ The cab driver warned you about that you could get fined for stealing it on the way home but you didn’t care. Or, I guess, you were too drunk to care. Do you still have it?”

“Of course I do, it’s hanging on the wall of my bedroom.”

Danny laughed at the memory, and they stayed like that, talking about the months leading up to their first date and their consequent relationship. Stiles had thought talking about it would be awkward, but they both managed to be adults about it. And so, Stiles got lost in their conversation, laughing at old memories, not even glancing at the clock until they heard the elevator doors open with a ping out in the main office.

Checking the clock, Stiles was shocked to find that it was 10.15 already. He hadn’t noticed the time passing at all, and with one look at Danny’s smug face he knew that had been his intentions.

Getting out of his chair, Stiles followed Danny out to the elevators where the team were just exiting. At the sight of them, Stiles felt the last bits of fear draining from him. When his team was with him, he would be safe. Stiles had no doubt about that.

“Stiles!” Derek’s voice was, surprisingly, the first to reach them. “Are you okay? He hasn’t contacted you right?”

“He sent me a text like two hours ago, asking if I wanted to meet up, but I told him I was too tired. He hasn’t answered me. I’m okay, don’t worry. Danny kept me company.”

“That’s good,” Deaton said. “You should stay away from him for now, until we can gather enough evidence and get everything in order. Hopefully, it won’t take more than a day, but most of what we have right now is circumstantial. But, I feel confident that we can get a confession out of him when we arrest him. Sociopaths like him and Argent always wants recognition.”

Stiles’ stomach twisted a bit at the word sociopath, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he turned to Danny. “Thanks for staying with me tonight. You can go home now. I’ll be fine.”

Danny didn’t look completely convinced, but since the team were all here he didn’t push it. “Okay, text me later okay? We’ll have to find a date to go out or something. Catch a movie, maybe?”

Stiles nodded. “Yeah, I’ll text you when this is all over. Say hello to Jeremy for me, will you?”

“Yeah, of course. See you later.” Danny hugged Stiles tightly one last time before waving goodbye to the team and pushing the button for the elevator.

“So,” Stiles said. “What do we do now?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure you're all /very/ surprised to find that it was Theo all along. Lol.
> 
> Anyway, thank you to everyone who read, kudos'ed and commented on this. I can't believe this has over 400 kudos and 60 comments! You guys blow my mind!
> 
> Next chapter on Thursday


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m sorry,” Stiles said, eventually, still not looking up.
> 
> “You’re sorry? About what?” Derek sounded confused.
> 
> “You warned me, about Theo, and I yelled at you,” Stiles explained, feeling his stomach twist again as he said his name.

“I’m going to stay with you tonight,” Derek said. “We’ll take turns, I guess. When you’re in the office you’ll be safe with us, of course, but we’ll keep someone with you at all times when you’re not.”

“Okay,” Stiles said.  He felt like he was in witness protection or something. This whole situation felt bizarre.

“Did you eat anything?” Scott asked. Stiles shook his head and Scott frowned deeply.

“I had a bottle of water, though, but I should probably eat something. I feel pretty wiped. Have you guys eaten yet?” The team all shook their heads.

“We were pretty anxious to get back here,” Erica said, smiling cautiously, as if she was afraid of offending or scaring him or something.

Stiles returned her smile. “Maybe we should get some takeout or something then?”

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. I’ll call,” Kira said, and disappeared into the office, stopping to give Stiles a hug. Kira leaving seemed to push the rest of the team into motion as well, and one by one they slowly entered the office, all stopping to pat Stiles on the back, squeeze his shoulder or give him a hug.

Finally, Stiles and Derek were left, standing in the lobby, staring at each other. The silence between them was tangible, but not necessarily uncomfortable. Stiles broke their eye contact after a minute, biting his lip and looking down at his hands. They were still shaking slightly.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles said, eventually, still not looking up.

“You’re sorry? About what?” Derek sounded confused.

“You warned me, about Theo, and I yelled at you,” Stiles explained, feeling his stomach twist again as he said his name.

Derek was silent for so long that Stiles eventually had to look up. Derek was watching his face with a mix of sadness and something else. Annoyance? No. Something else. Something he couldn’t identify.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” Derek said finally, breaking the silence. “You couldn’t have known what he was. I understand why you didn’t believe me. Theo is obviously very good at acting, and you probably didn’t want to see anything wrong with him, even if he did let something slip. That’s a completely human response.”

Stiles bit his lip again. It felt sore and dry, but Stiles couldn’t help himself, shaking his head. “But still, I work with people like Theo every day, I feel like I should have seen the signs.” Even now, when he knew what he knew, he still couldn’t totally believe it. He had seemed so normal.

“Stiles, listen to me. Theo has been trained by the Boston Reaper, probably ever since he was young. He knows how to act and how to make people like him. He’s manipulative. You work with people like him every day, but that’s just looking at evidence. You don’t interact with them; not like we do. And trust me, we’ve interviewed people tons of times without suspecting that they’re really the ones we’re looking for. You’re not the first person to make that mistake, and you won’t be the last.”

Stiles nodded, not feeling totally relieved, but Derek’s words had at least helped eased some of the worry and guilt sitting heavy in the pit of his stomach. “Thanks,” Stiles said, smiling.

“No problem.” Derek smiled back.

Stiles nodded, and thought about saying something else, but just when he opened his mouth, Kira came walking out towards the elevators. “I’m heading down to get the food from the delivery guy, so we’re eating in a second,” she said.

Derek nodded. “We’ll be in in a moment,” he promised, as the elevator doors closed and Kira disappeared down towards the ground floor.

Stiles smiled again, feeling better than he had all night. They joined the others in the office, Derek sitting down in his desk chair and Stiles leaning back against the desk. Kira came back with boxes full of Chinese takeout just minutes later, and once they all had a box each they started eating. The food tasted great, and did wonders to make Stiles feel more energized.

They ate in silence for a while, and the only noises heard in the office were chopsticks colliding and people chewing. Later, once all the boxes were empty and thrown in the overflowing trashcans, they started talking.

“So, Derek will go home with Stiles tonight, to make sure he stays safe. We all meet up back here tomorrow, and work on gathering evidence and getting a warrant,” Deaton said.

Stiles nodded. “Alright. I just want him gone, honestly, I don’t care what happens to him, as long as I don’t have to see him.”

“We’ll try our best to make that happen, Stiles, but I can’t promise anything. You will probably need to testify at the very least,” Derek said. “But we can deal with that tomorrow. It’s getting late, let’s get you home to your apartment.”

Derek picked up his go bag and waited for Stiles to gather some things from his office. While waiting by the elevator for Stiles to return, Scott came up to him. “Take care of him for me, alright? Don’t let anything happen to him.”

“I won’t,” Derek promised. He really meant it; he would protect Stiles with his life if he had to.

Scott nodded, seemingly satisfied with his answer. Just as they finished their short conversation, Stiles reappeared with his bag.

“Ready to go?” Stiles asked, looking between Derek and Scott.

Derek looked away from Scott and nodded. “Yeah, I’m ready. Let’s go.”

* * *

Once they were back at Stiles’ apartment, Stiles got the couch ready for Derek to sleep on. He had offered him the other side of Stiles’ bed, but Derek had told him that he didn’t want to intrude.  

“And besides, if I stay out here it’ll be easier to protect you. I have a clear view of the front door.”

Stiles nodded. “If anything happens, just be careful, alright? I can’t deal with anything happening to you.”

“I will be, now go to sleep. You probably need it, after the day you’ve had. Anyone would be exhausted by half of what happened to you.”

“I’ll make you a deal; I’ll go to sleep, but only if you do too. Your day has been just as crazy as mine. I guess working at the FBI usually doesn’t provide a very stress free work environment.” Stiles’ lips quirked up into a small smile. Derek returned the smile, happy to hear Stiles joke around.

“Okay, deal. Now go to bed. I’ll see you for breakfast tomorrow.”

Stiles did, and Derek did too. The night passed quietly, without Derek waking up even once. The next morning, Stiles shuffled sleepily out into the living room, rubbing his eyes. “Derek?” he asked quietly. “Are you awake?”

“Yeah, are you okay?” Derek sat up off the couch, staring at Stiles. He was wearing a large soft looking t-shirt with a faded print on it, and a black pair of boxer briefs. His hair was sticking up in every direction. Usually, Stiles looked put together and ready for anything life had to throw at him. But right now, Stiles looked younger than Derek had ever seen him.

“Yeah, I’m fine, I just had a bad dream.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Derek asked, getting up and walking around the couch. Stiles shook his head.

“No, no, just forget about it.”

Derek didn’t really buy it, but figured that pushing Stiles wouldn’t do him any good. “Okay, do you want me to make breakfast?”

“That would be great, thank you,” Stiles said, smiling. “I’m going to go shower, okay? Um, if you want to shower after me I can get you some fresh towels?”

“That’s okay,” Derek said. “I think I’m going to go by my apartment and get some spare clothes and stuff before work. If that’s okay with you?”

“Yes, of course, I can get to work on my own, it’s not a problem.” Stiles smiled reassuringly before heading into his bathroom, shutting the door behind him. Derek tried not to imagine Stiles in the shower as he headed into the kitchen and began to prepare an omelet from the things he found in Stiles’ refrigerator.

Fifteen minutes later, Stiles emerged from the bathroom dressed in grey sweatpants and a fresh t-shirt. His hair was damp and hanging down onto his forehead, unlike how it was usually swept up and away from his face.

Derek put two plates down on the table next to two glasses of juice and sat in one of the chairs, while Stiles sat down in the other. They ate in silence, and once they were done eating, Stiles took the dishes and put them in the sink. “Don’t worry about it,” he told Derek when he looked like he was going to protest. “I’ll take care of it after work.”

“Alright, are you ready to leave?”

Stiles nodded. “Yeah, I just need to go get changed. Can’t exactly go to work looking like this.” Stiles gestured to his hair and the clothes he had just thrown on after his shower.

Reemerging from his bedroom ten minutes later, Stiles was dressed in a fresh blue button down shirt and a nice pair of jeans. His hair was dry and swept away from his face, as usual. Stiles headed out to the hallway and put on his shoes and jacket. Derek followed him and did the same.

Once they were out of the apartment, Stiles and Derek hailed a cab and went over to Derek’s place so he could change his clothes and take a shower. Stiles waited in the living room. Once Derek came back out, his hair was damp, and he was dressed in a clean shirt.

“You know,” Stiles began, trying not to look at the drops of water still clinging to Derek’s face. “I could have gone to the office by myself.”

“I know,” Derek said, smiling softly. “But I’m not going to risk anything happening to you. I’d rather we get there a little late than have anything happen to you when I can’t help you. Are you ready to go?” At Stiles’ nod Derek grabbed his things, heading for the front door.

They got to the office just ten minutes late, and found the entire team already there and working. They were trying to prove that Theo had been in Boston on the dates of the murders. And with Stiles’ texts from Theo they had a good start. Researching Theo’s credit card records and flight plans turned out to fall mostly on Stiles, since he was the technical analyst.

Stiles took it all surprisingly well. He had feared that working on the case might send him into another panic attack, but so far he was doing good. Turns out, it was pretty easy once he convinced himself it was just like any other case.

Search the records, invade their privacy, this was all things Stiles had done hundreds, if not thousands of times before. And once he was in, it was easy to find that Theo had indeed ordered flights on dates before or on the dates people were murdered. He had used the aliases again, but they had all been paid with the same credit card, which Stiles could easily trace back to him.

Just as Stiles handed all the information over to Deaton and went to sit down to take a break, his phone vibrated in his pocket. Checking the caller id, Stiles immediately handed his phone over to Deaton, who told him to take it.

Danny was here working with them on setting up a trap and trace, since Stiles couldn’t talk and type at the same time. Stiles steeled himself silently before picking up the phone and sliding his thumb across the screen.

“Hello?” Stiles said, trying to sound calmer than he actually was.

“Stiles?” Theo’s voice asked. “Hey, babe, how are you?” Theo sounded happy, which was a huge contrast to how Stiles felt, his stomach in knots as he got ready to lie to the man who was technically still his boyfriend, even if Stiles never wanted to see his face again.

“Hi, Theo, I’m fine. I mean, this case is kind of exhausting both for me and the team, but we’re hanging in there. I really think we’re on to something.” There. Talk about the case. That’s what he and Deaton had agreed on. They knew that Theo would most likely be interested in seeing if they had any leads that could lead them to him.

“Oh? Are the team still out in the field?” Theo asked, sounding casual. Stiles knew now that Theo was a great actor, but what Theo might not know was that so was Stiles.

“Yeah,” Stiles said. They had also agreed beforehand that it would be best if Theo didn’t know they were back. That might help give them an edge when they went to arrest him.

“I’m all alone in the office.” Stiles felt his heart clench in his chest as he said it, hating that he had to do this, but knowing that it was necessary.

“Oh, really? Do you want to go out and grab some lunch?” Stiles heard the excitement in Theo’s voice, and he had to stop himself from retching at the thought.

“I’d love to, but I can’t,” Stiles said eventually, trying to get as much regret into his voice as possible. From across the table, Danny held up ten fingers. Okay, ten more seconds, he could do that.

“Okay,” Theo said, voice unreadable. “I have to go; I’ll talk to you later.” Before Stiles could get another word in, Theo hung up on him, and Stiles stared down at the phone in his hand, shocked.

“Did we get it?” Deaton asked, looking at Danny and startling Stiles out of his momentary shock. Stiles looked over at Danny and just caught his disappointed look.

“I managed to narrow it to this district right here, but he hung up before I got the exact location,” Danny said. Stiles leaned over his shoulder to stare at the map in front of him. It wasn’t, as Stiles had thought it would be, the area in which Theo’s apartment was. It was a completely different part of town.

“Looks like we have some old abandoned buildings around here, but this is mostly just office space. Well, not this one. This building was recently bought up and is scheduled to be demolished in a few months. To be honest, he could be in any of these buildings. They wouldn’t be hard to hide in, especially not if he knows how to fit in.”

“He does,” Stiles said quietly.

“Alright,” Deaton said, raising his voice so the entire floor heard him. “Erica, you and I will take the office buildings, Kira, you and Scott take the abandoned buildings, and Derek, you take the one that’s scheduled to be demolished. These are all two and three floor buildings, it shouldn’t take too long to search through them, especially if most of them are empty. Stiles, you and Lydia stay here. We’ll let you know what we find.”

Stiles nodded, not feeling too good about this plan but not saying anything about it. He knew this was how it had to be. As the team left, Stiles settled down in between Danny and Lydia in front of the radio system so they could listen in and communicate with the team.

* * *

“Nothing here,” Erica said into her mic.

“Same here,” Scott said.

“Has anyone heard from Derek?” Deaton asked.

All these messages went through to Derek’s headset, but he himself was not conscious to hear them.

Minutes earlier, Derek had been sweeping through the abandoned two story building, holding his gun with both hands, flashlight mounted on top to give him light in the dark room. There was nothing in the first room he entered so he moved on, sweeping his eyes through the dark, looking for any sign of movement. There was nothing.

He moved on to the next room, turning around a corner into a hallway and finding nothing but more darkness. As he walked slowly through the hallway into the next room, he found nothing but a few old pictures left on the walls. In the next room, there was a large window facing out onto the abandoned street. He stood about a foot from it, swiping his flashlight across the room when a heavy body slammed into him, forcing him sideways and into the glass of the window, breaking it. As he smashed through the window, Theo on top of him, Derek landed heavily on the ground, hitting his head against the concrete. He could feel cuts bleeding along his back and arms, and barely registered the body lying on the ground next to him before he passed out.

Above him, Theo stood, holding Derek’s own gun. He knelt down over Derek’s unconscious body, slapping him lightly in the face. “Come on, Derek, wake up. It’s time to die.” When Derek didn’t react, Theo huffed out an annoyed breath, and popped out the magazine of the gun. Removing one of the bullets from the magazine, Theo placed it gently in Derek’s chest. Making sure it wasn’t going to roll off, Theo reached into Derek’s pockets.

Theo pulled out Derek’s badge, flipping it open and staring and the picture of Derek. “I think I’ll just take this, as a souvenir. And I’ll leave you to it.” Theo stood up and pocketed the agent’s credentials and his gun, walking away from what would undoubtedly be a crime scene as soon as they figured out that the agent wasn’t responding.

* * *

Back at the office, Stiles, Danny and Lydia had heard that Derek wasn’t responding. “Guys, go check on Derek, okay? Make sure he’s safe,” Stiles said urgently when Derek still hadn’t responded a few minutes later.

“We’re on our way,” Scott reassured him.

Stiles listened as they found Derek, as they told everyone he was breathing, as they called the ambulance.

“I’m fine,” came Derek’s voice finally, and Stiles let out a breath he didn’t realized he’d ben holding.

“Derek? Derek, he didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“No, Stiles, I’m fine,” Derek promised.

* * *

“He took my credentials,” Derek said, frowning at Deaton from where he was perched on the back of the ambulance, letting the EMT clean his wounds and pick pieces of glass out of his shoulder. “And he left me with this.” Derek picked up the single bullet that had been left on his chest, holding it up so Deaton could look at it.

“Why would he do that?” Derek asked, frowning deeper.

“To show you that he could easily have killed you,” Deaton said seriously. “That he had your life in his hands.”

“Then why didn’t he just kill me?”

“He wants his victims to be awake and present when he kills them. An unconscious victim doesn’t interest him.”

Derek nodded, twinging as the EMT picked out a particularly large piece of glass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading, kudosing and commenting!
> 
> Next chapter on Monday!


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles ripped off his headset, dropping it onto the floor. The music was still playing loudly, but Stiles barely registered it. “Who are you,” Stiles asked, trying to keep the fear he suddenly felt from his voice.
> 
> “Well, let’s just say we have a friend in common, and he wanted me to check on you, since he is currently unable to,” the woman said, grinning widely. Stiles swallowed heavily. There was only one person she could be referring to; the person Stiles had been trying his best not to think about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware the time jump. Also, there's a change in POV near the end. Some serious shit goes down in this chapter and the next ones, so make sure to read the new tags.

**Three months later**

Stiles was wearing his Bluetooth headset, listening to music that was loud enough to drown out the sounds of the city around him. Lately, that was how he preferred it. He was finally starting to feel better and less frightened being alone. He had just stopped checking for threats around every corner, and had just recently started listening to music again on his way from work.

He was mouthing the words to the song he was listening to, getting his keys out of his pocket and opening the door to his apartment. Dropping his bag and toeing off his shoes, Stiles closed his eyes, getting totally lost in the music. He quickly locked the door behind him, dropping his keys down onto the table in the hallway.

Lately he had been rediscovering all the music he had used to listen to, and he loved it. Shuffling off into the living room, Stiles continued singing on his way into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and grabbed a beer. When he turned around to return to the living room, Stiles nearly had a heart attack. There was a woman standing in his living room, staring at him. A woman who looked strangely familiar.

Stiles ripped off his headset, dropping it onto the floor. The music was still playing loudly, but Stiles barely registered it. “Who are you,” Stiles asked, trying to keep the fear he suddenly felt from his voice.

“Well, let’s just say we have a friend in common, and he wanted me to check on you, since he is currently unable to,” the woman said, grinning widely. Stiles swallowed heavily. There was only one person she could be referring to; the person Stiles had been trying his best not to think about.

“Theo sent you?” Stiles asked, feeling as if a rock had been dropped into his stomach. “Where is he?” Theo had been evading the authorities for over three months now. There had been no sightings of him, and the FBI had no leads on where he might be. It made sense that he was getting help, and this woman might be the one helping him. He was sure he had seen her before, but he just couldn’t place her.

“Don’t worry about that, Stiles,” she said. Stiles shivered at the sound of his name coming from her mouth. “You’ll see him soon enough.”

“What are you talking about? I’m not going anywhere with you if that’s what you’re thinking.”

She smiled again, and lifted her shirt to reveal a holstered gun. “I think you’re going exactly where I want you to, unless you want me to leave you here to bleed out with a bullet in your stomach.”

And that’s when it hit him. “You’re Kate Argent,” Stiles said. “We tried to contact you to talk to you about Gerard, but you had disappeared. I stared at your picture for hours while I tried to contact you. You’re working with Theo?”

“What a clever boy you are, Stiles. I was waiting for you to figure that out. I was starting to think Theo had overestimated you, but I guess he didn’t. He had so many nice things to say about you. Well, until you tried to get him arrested that is. He didn’t like that very much. Which is why he sent me to get you.”

“Are you sure telling me your whole plan is such a great idea?”

“Oh, I feel fairly certain that you wont leave my sight. Not alive at least.” She laughed at her own words. She reminded Stiles of a cartoon villain, with her big speech and evil laughter.

“So, Stiles, while I’ve thoroughly enjoyed our little chat, I think it’s time you went to sleep.” She stepped closer to him, pulling out her gun with one hand and pointing it at him, safety off. With her other hand she reached into her pocket and pulled out a syringe.

“Oh, hell no, keep that away from me,” Stiles said, backing up into the kitchen until his back hit the kitchen window. He entertained the idea of trying to get the window opened and crawling out onto the fire escape, but to do that he would have to turn his back on Kate, and that didn’t seem like a very good idea.

So he just stood there as she approached, watched as she pulled the cap off the needle with her teeth, spitting it into the kitchen sink. By now she was close enough that Stiles could feel her breath on his face, and Stiles was frozen in place. He felt his breath quicken as he started to hyperventilate. This was possibly the worst time and place ever to have a panic attack, but Stiles couldn’t help it.

“Don’t worry, Stiles, this will calm you right down,” Kate said with a gleeful smile as she drove the needle into his neck and pushed down on the plunger. Stiles felt as if his entire body had turned to jelly. Leaning against the kitchen window, Stiles slid down the wall until he was sitting. The last thing he saw before his vision went black was Kate kneeling down in front of him, smiling sweetly.

* * *

When Stiles came to again, his head was pounding. He opened his eyes but found that he couldn’t see; he was blindfolded, a dark piece of cloth covering his eyes. Testing his limbs, Stiles also figured out that he was tied to a chair, wrists and ankles restrained tightly. His mouth was stuffed with a ball of cloth, wet with saliva, that kept him from speaking while still allowing him to breathe.

Stiles made an angry sound in the back of his throat, trying to twist his head to get the blindfold off. At the movement, Stiles heard someone moving close to him. The scrape of a chair, footsteps approaching, a small tsk tsk of disappointment.

“Oh, Stiles.” Stiles froze at the sound of that voice. He hadn’t heard that voice in over three months; he had been hoping he never would again. “You shouldn’t have meddled, you know. I mean, I know you work for the feds and that it’s your job and all that, but you really weren’t supposed to find out. Not this soon at least. I guess I underestimated how good you are at your job. I wish I could have been there to see your reaction though. I bet it was great. Did you have a panic attack? Like you used to after your mom died? Oh, yes, Stiles, I know about that. I know more than you know. I watched you for months before making contact.”

Stiles bristled at the confession. Stiles was angry at himself for not noticing, and angry at Theo for playing him like a fool. But he had more pressing matters at hand. He had been kidnapped, drugged, and taken somewhere god knows how far away. For all he knew, he wasn’t even in the city anymore. He couldn’t afford to panic; if he wanted any chance at getting out of this alive, he had to stay calm.

“Are you planning your escape, Stiles? Thinking that your team will find you? Well, you’re probably not wrong. They will eventually find you, but who knows how long that could take. They don’t even know that you’re missing, and they won’t know until tomorrow morning. Maybe they won’t even realize it then. They’ll think you’re sick, taking a day off to deal with the trauma you recently experienced. And by the time they finally send someone to your place, imagine all the damage I will have had the chance to do by then. What do you think Derek will say when he finds you broken and bleeding on the floor of a warehouse? He might not even make it in time.”

The words made Stiles sick to his stomach. He knew Theo was trying to agitate him, and he knew he shouldn’t let himself care, but he did. His words hit home in a way Stiles couldn’t ignore. He felt his eyes fill with unshed tears, wetting the blindfold and making his eyelashes stick together.

“Aw, are you crying, Stiles? Like a little baby, waiting for his team to come save him.” Theo grabbed the back of his neck, running his hand up the back of his head until he got to the knot of the blindfold. Grabbing it, he pulled the blindfold off Stiles’ face.

Stiles blinked quickly, trying to adjust his eyes to the sharp light after being immersed in darkness. Looking around, Stiles noted that he could see one exit. There might be others but Stiles couldn’t look behind himself to find out. They were indeed in a warehouse, the room bare and grey with the exception of a few boxes stacked in one corner. The ceiling was high above them, large windows letting light inside the warehouse. They were the only windows in the building.

“Now, isn’t that much better, Stiles? Now you can look at me when I’m talking to you.” Stiles had been very pointedly not looking at Theo, but now his chin was grabbed and his face angled so he was forced to look at his captor.

“Did you miss me, Stiles?” Theo asked with a playful smile on his face. Stiles jerked his head backwards to get Theo’s hands off of him, but Theo just gripped tighter, the smile melting from his face.

Stiles was still gagged, unable to answer, but he suspected that Theo didn’t want an answer from him anyway. Which was probably a good call, because all Stiles wanted to do was spit in his face.

The glare he directed at Theo seemed to communicate as much, because Theo laughed and dropped his chin, reaching up to pat his cheek patronizingly instead. “Don’t worry, Stiles, I’m not going to hurt you. Not yet at least. As long as you sit still like a good boy, you’ll be just fine. You’re not the one I really want anyway. Even though this little reunion certainly is nice, I’m really more interested in getting another meeting with agent Hale, since he was, unfortunately, not all that present at our last meeting.” Theo snickered at his own joke as Stiles tried desperately to keep his breathing steady.

Theo wanted to kill Derek, obviously talking about Theo knocking Derek out and leaving him with a bullet balanced on his chest. A clear message that Theo could have killed him if he had wanted to. Theo’s desire to have his victims awake and fearing him when he killed them had been what had saved Derek. It probably wouldn’t be able to save Stiles.

“Hm, did you enjoy your meeting with Kate by the way? She’s swell, isn’t she? Very much the same ideals as her father, which works out perfectly for me. When I asked her to get you for me she was almost too eager.” Theo laughed. “I mean, I would have loved to go get you myself, but you know, I’m kind of on the top of the FBI’s most wanted list at the moment, and somehow I think that they wouldn’t let me just waltz into my ex-boyfriend’s apartment and drug and kidnap him.”

“Kate, however, isn’t a known face in Quantico, we made sure of that. It was almost comically easy. Seriously, doesn’t your team care enough to leave a couple of fucking guards in the neighborhood? Are they getting tired of you, Stiles? Are you becoming a burden to them? Is that why you told them you were fine? That you didn’t need their protection any more, even though we both know you lock your door the second you get inside. That you keep all your windows closed at all times, that you listen to loud music to keep the fear out. You’re terrified, Stiles, and you have every right to be. All your fears turned out to be true, didn’t they? I mean, look at you now, here you are, tied up and gagged, completely at my mercy.”

Stiles was getting tired of listening to Theo’s voice. He tried desperately to drown it out, to drown out the fear it brought with it. Because Theo was right; everything he had feared in the last few months had happened, and now he was screwed, unless his team saved him. And, as Theo had so kindly pointed out, his team probably wouldn’t even know he was missing until the next morning.

“Well, I think it’s time we get the fun started, don’t you?” Theo asked, as if Stiles had any choice in any of this. Walking a few steps behind Stiles’ chair, Theo pulled out a surgical table covered in a white cloth. He placed the table a few feet in front of where Stiles sat. “Now, this isn’t how I usually work, but I think trying new things could be fun, right? Do you like trying new things, Stiles?”

Theo pulled the cloth off the table and revealed rows of sharp instruments. There were small knives and scalpels, bigger blades shining menacingly in the light from the overhead windows. On the other side of the table there were different bottles with clear liquids, and Stiles could also make out a set of empty syringes. Stiles recoiled at the sight of the table’s contents, shaking his head violently.

Theo pouted at him. “Don’t you want to play with me, Stiles?” Stiles shook his head again, writhing in the chair as he tried to get free from his restraints. Theo sighed heavily, and picked up one of the bottles of liquid and one of the empty syringes. Pushing the needle into the bottle and pulling back the plunger, Stiles saw the liquid filling up the syringe.

Theo pulled it out again and set the bottle down, using his now free hand to flick the needle lightly. “Looks good,” he commented, probably more to himself than to Stiles. Refocusing on Stiles, Theo smiled again. “Don’t worry, Stiles, this won’t kill you. It will just knock you out for a few hours while I take care of some business. And once you wake up, as long as you don’t do something stupid, like try to escape, I won’t have to cut you open.”

Those were the final words Stiles heard before Theo pressed the needle into his neck, the same spot where Kate had injected him earlier. Stiles felt the familiar feeling of blackness spreading across his vision, his body going limp in the chair.

* * *

Derek was worried about Stiles. No matter how many times he had reassured Derek that he didn’t need anyone taking care of him, Derek still worried. Ever since they had stopped sending agents to Stiles’ apartment a week earlier, on Stiles’ insistence that he was fine, Derek had been worried. It was like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something terrible to happen to Stiles.

He knew logically that Stiles could take care of himself, but that didn’t stop the twisting feeling in his stomach every time Stiles left the office.

Derek was currently in his own apartment. The TV was on but he wasn’t watching it. Instead, he kept an eye on his phone. He had texted Stiles to make sure he had gotten home alright, but he hadn’t gotten an answer. It had been twenty minutes, and while, logically, Derek knew that Stiles was probably just in the shower or something, the less logical part of Derek’s brain told him something else.

Finally, when the thirty-minute mark had passed, Derek decided to call him. Holding the phone up to his ear, Derek waited impatiently, listening to the dial tone ring once, twice, thrice, before going to voicemail.

Derek bit his lip, redialing, and going to voicemail again, as if Stiles’ phone was turned off. Derek knew that Stiles never turned his phone off. Getting up off the couch, Derek dialed the number to the bureau instead, knowing that there was always someone on call.

“Hello, this is the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” someone answered.

“This is SSA Derek Hale,” Derek answered. “I need you to send someone over to the apartment of technical analyst Stiles Stilinski. He’s not answering his phone, and he’s currently a witness in an ongoing investigation, so I fear something might have happened to him.”

“We’ll send someone over right away,” the man said. Hanging up, Derek felt slightly better, but still not completely reassured. He figured there was nothing more he could do, though, so he sat back down on the couch and put his head in his hands.

Some time later, Derek’s phone started vibrating with an incoming call. “Hello?” he said once he picked up.

“Hello, is this SSA Derek Hale?” a different voice than the one from before asked him.

“Yes, that’s me,” Derek answered.

“Okay, we went to the address of the name you gave us, and we entered the apartment. There’s no sign of a struggle, but there’s no one here. The only thing we found was something that looks like the cap of a syringe in the kitchen sink.”

Derek’s mind was moving quickly, registering and filing the information he had just been given. “Okay, thank you for telling me, I’ll be over in a few seconds, if you’ll just stay there.”

“Sure thing.” Derek hung up, and raced to the door, putting his shoes on and grabbing his jacket. He barely remembered to grab his keys from the bowl by the door before he raced outside, getting his phone again to dial Scott’s number.

“Something’s happened to Stiles,” Derek said the second Scott picked up, not bothering to wait for Scott to greet him.

“What? Derek, what are you talking about? How do you know something has happened to him?”

“He’s not in his apartment, and I sent a team over to investigate and they told me that there was no sign of a struggle, but they found the cap of a needle in his kitchen sink. Stiles is deadly afraid of needles, there’s no way he’d keep any in his apartment.”

“Shit,” Scott said. “Okay, okay, are you at the apartment?”

“I’m heading there now,” Derek said as he waved his hand to get the attention of a cab.

“Okay, I’ll meet you there. Have you told the rest of the team, yet?”

“No, you were the first person I called. We need to let the rest of them know.”

“Yeah, I’ll call Deaton and Lydia and you can call Kira and Erica, okay? We’ll all meet up at Stiles’ apartment.”

“Yes, I’ll see you there.” Derek hung up, immediately dialing Kira’s number to let her know. He got into a cab and gave the driver the address before holding the phone up to his ear to tell Kira what had happened.

The conversation was over quickly, and he called Erica just as he paid the driver and got out in front of Stiles’ apartment building. Filling her in, Derek pushed the door open, taking the stairs two at a time until he reached Stiles’ floor. The door to his apartment was wide open, people moving in and out wearing dark blue jackets with yellow letters spelling ‘FBI’ on the backs.

Entering the apartment, Derek immediately noted that both his bag and his keys were there, along with his jacket. His shoes and his phone was missing, unless they were somewhere else in the apartment.

Derek went into the kitchen through the living room. Someone tapped him on his shoulder, and he turned around. “You must be Derek Hale,” the man, a tall and muscled man with dark skin and a nearly shaved head said. “I’m SSA Vernon Boyd, I have the night shift tonight. I was the first on the scene.” Next to him stood a shorter woman with light brown hair that reached her shoulders and a serious expression on her face. “This is my colleague, SSA Malia Tate.”

“Nice to meet you,” Derek said, shaking their hands. “Have you found anything new?”

“We’ve uncovered two sets of footprints. The second pair seems to belong to a woman’s size 7. It was virtually undetectable, so we didn’t discover it until after talking to you. It seems like whoever has your friend tried to clean up after herself, but she didn’t quite manage it. She was probably in a hurry to get your friend out of here. We’re analyzing the syringe cap to see if we can figure out what substance was in it. It was probably something used to subdue Mr. Stilinski.”

Derek nodded. “I’ve called the rest of our team, so they should all be here soon.”

“Good. So, do you have any theories? You said he was supposed to witness in a case?” Malia asked.

“Not exactly. He was involved with the Boston Reaper case, and our most recent suspect is his ex-boyfriend, but he escaped before we could arrest him. We feared that he might try to come back for Stiles, so we had a FBI detail on him for a few weeks, but a week ago, Stiles insisted that he didn’t need it, so we stopped it. And now this happened.

Boyd nodded thoughtfully, sharing a look with Malia who was scribbling notes in her notebook. “But you said the footprints belonged to a woman?” Derek asked.

“It seems that way. I guess it could be someone wearing women’s shoes, but it doesn’t seem all that likely.”

“Yeah, our suspect probably had help from a woman. He wouldn’t be able to show his face in public without being recognized anyway.”

“That’s probably true,” Boyd nodded his agreement.

Derek turned around just in time to see Scott and Deaton entering the apartment, worried looks on their faces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who read, kudo'd and commented! 
> 
> Next chapter on Thursday


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tugging on his wrists, Stiles noticed that he had started getting rope burn around them from tugging too hard. Now that he thought about it, his whole body kind of ached. “How are you feeling, Stiles?” Theo’s voice came from behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a loooot of dialogue in this chapter. And Theo is a creep.

When Stiles came to again, the gag had been removed, but he was still tied up. Opening his eyes, Stiles saw that the chair was in the same position it had been before. Stiles couldn’t see Theo anywhere. He tried to turn his head, but he didn’t get far.

Tugging on his wrists, Stiles noticed that he had started getting rope burn around them from tugging too hard. Now that he thought about it, his whole body kind of ached. “How are you feeling, Stiles?” Theo’s voice came from behind him.

Stiles clenched his jaw tightly, tugging on his wrists again, even knowing it was useless. “Sore, I imagine,” Theo continued, talking casually as if he hadn’t kidnapped and restrained Stiles to a chair. “You’ve been sitting still for quite some time, after all. I’d offer to let you stretch your legs for a bit, but to be honest, I don’t trust that you won’t try to run away.”

Well, Theo had gotten that part right at least; if he somehow got free from the ropes holding him, he would run, and he wouldn’t stop or look back for anything.

“What’s wrong, Stiles? Cat got your tongue?” Theo grinned widely at his own joke, but Stiles remained silent.

“And here I was, thinking you might want to talk to me. But I guess you’re still mad about all those little secrets I kept from you.”

Stiles clenched his jaw harder. Little secrets? Sure, if he called murdering people a ‘little’ secret. Still, he refused to talk to him.

Theo’s grin slipped from his face and was replaced with a look of irritation. “All right,” he said. “If that’s how you want it. I have ways to make you talk.”  

Stiles didn’t have time to ponder about how Theo planned to do that before Stiles’ head snapped to the side from the force of Theo’s palm slapping him across the face. Being unprepared for the impact, Stiles let out a wounded yelp. Stiles could tell that there would be a handprint shaped bruise on his face for days.

“There you go, Stiles,” Theo said, smiling again. “That’s definitely a step in the right direction. Now you just need to use your words.”

When Stiles defiantly shut his mouth, he was rewarded with another slap, this time to the other cheek. Although both his cheeks now throbbed painfully, Stiles had anticipated the second hit, and had been able to remain quiet.

“Tsk, tsk, Stiles. And here I thought we were getting somewhere. Maybe you need some more … motivation.”

Theo straightened up and moved to walk around Stiles, presumably to get the table from before. The one with all the knives and needles. Stiles shuddered at the thought. Sighing heavily, Stiles made a decision. It was either talk to Theo and give in to what he wanted, or let Theo cut him to pieces. “What do you want, Theo?” Stiles finally whispered, voice rough from being unused for hours.

Theo grinned and turned back to him. “There we are,” he said. “I’ve missed that beautiful voice of yours.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. Could Theo be any more cartoon villain? He already had the lair, the lackey and the cliché lines, all he needed now was an evil laughter and a German accent.

“Come on now, don’t go all quiet on me now,” Theo said when Stiles didn’t say anything.

“Fuck off,” Stiles said, all but spitting the words at Theo.

“Oh, come on babe, are you mad at me? There’s no reason to be.”

“There’s no reason for me to be mad at you, huh? What about that small fact that you kidnapped me and tied me to a chair in some random warehouse god knows where?” Once Stiles had started talking, all his anger at the situation seemed to pour out all at once. Stiles felt his face heat up as he spoke.

“Well, guess what, Theo? I don’t care what it is you want; if there’s some actual plan behind all this or if you’re just doing this for some weird power trip. I don’t give a shit. You won’t get to me, and you won’t get to my team, and you can just go fuck yourself.”

Stiles closed his eyes, breathing quickly. The anger was still simmering, just under the surface of his skin. He felt as if he was about to explode with it. “Are you done?” Theo asked, obvious amusement in his voice.

Stiles opened his eyes but didn’t say anything, looking away defiantly. He stared at the grey wall to his left, trying desperately to find anything that would help him pinpoint his location. But there was nothing, nothing at all, besides the grey concrete.

“Where are we?” Stiles asked eventually, turning his head back to look at Theo, who was staring at him with a calculating look in his eyes.

“What makes you think I would tell you?” Theo asked, tilting his head to one side and narrowing his eyes.

“Well, I kind of just assumed that you’re going to end up killing me eventually.” As Stiles spoke the words out loud he realized how much he actually meant it. Ever since finding out who Theo was, he had known in the back of his mind, that he would somehow end up here, even if he tried to deny it. He had always known. And as long as he was being honest with himself, he didn’t really expect to walk out of here alive.

“And why would I want to do that?”

“I mean, I’ve seen your face, I know who you are, how you think. I could help the FBI find you.”

Theo raised one eyebrow, still looking amused. “Oh, could you? Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to do for the last three months, with no luck?”

“They’ll know that you’re close by, or at least that you were. They’ll see me as your weakness, use me to catch you. Because I am your weakness, aren’t I, Theo? You could be anywhere in the world right now, as far as the authorities are concerned, but you stayed here, close to me. And now you have me, so what are you going to do?” Stiles spoke with more confidence than he actually felt, trying to convince Theo as well as himself.

“What am I going to do?” Theo repeated, stepping closer to the chair Stiles was in. He leaned down, slowly, and put one hand on each of Stiles’ arms, tied to the armrests. From this position they were barely an inch apart, and Stiles felt Theo’s warm breath on his face. Resisting the urge to flinch away, Stiles stared him down defiantly.

“God, I love that spark of yours,” Theo muttered, leaning closer until their lips met in a firm kiss. This time, Stiles did flinch, trying to get away, but Theo merely grabbed the back of his head with one of his hands to hold him still. Theo moved his lips against Stiles’, slipping his tongue out and swiping it across Stiles’ bottom lip. Stiles gagged, trying harder to free himself from Theo’s grip. 

Theo pulled back slightly to whisper against Stiles’ lips. “Come on, Stiles, let me in.” Stiles tried shaking his head but Theo’s grip on it held him still. When Stiles refused to cooperate, Theo brought his free hand up to his jaw, pressing down on it until Stiles opened his mouth with a pained whimper. “There you go, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Theo said, and brought their lips together again.

Stiles didn’t know how long Theo kept kissing him, but when he finally pulled back, Stiles was gasping for air. “What – The fuck – Is wrong with you?” Stiles’ lungs were burning, and when he looked up at Theo, who had straightened up and was now back to standing several feet in front of him, he looked extremely satisfied with what had just happened.

“I think you already know that there are a lot of things wrong with me. At least according to normal standards,” Theo said, smiling innocently. “But that kiss? That was just for me. I told you, Stiles, I’ve missed you. I missed us. We were so good together, don’t you remember? Didn’t you miss me?”

“Not even for one second, you fucking creep. I never want to see your fucking face again, if I can help it. The only time I’ll willingly be in the same room as you, is if I’m testifying against you in court,” Stiles spat, anger evident in his voice. Theo laughed.

“Oh, Stiles, do you really think I’m going to let myself get caught? You’ve really underestimated me if you think that. Oh no. This right here, our quality time together is nothing more than, well, let’s say a vacation. It’s a small vacation from the life on the run. And how can I afford this vacation, you may ask? Well, I’m very good at what I do, and I have a lot of connections. And while your team may find out where you are eventually, I’ll be long gone by then. And if, just if, your team is good enough, they might even be able to save you before this building goes down in a big cloud of dust and stone.

Stiles blood ran cold at Theo’s words. “We’re in the warehouse district,” Stiles said. “Where you attacked Derek. There was an abandoned building scheduled to be demolished. This is it, isn’t it?” Stiles felt surer of his instinct as he looked around again. The building was more or less empty, with the exception of the boxes in one corner, which could easily contain explosives or other equipment needed to demolish the building. 

“Such a clever boy,” Theo said proudly. “I knew you’d figure it out eventually. After all, I wanted you to find this place. That’s why I called you, you know, so that you could track my phone. I hung up early enough that I knew you couldn’t have gotten the exact location, which would make it more fun for me. And imagine how happy I was when I found that Derek was the one sent here. I knew he had a crush on you, I told you that, but you didn’t believe me. Are you guys together yet, or are you still pining over each other from afar?”

Stiles looked away, refusing to fall for his games. He didn’t want to think about Derek, or whether or not he might have a crush on him. For all Stiles knew though, Theo was still having him followed. If he did indeed have as many connections as he claimed, having someone follow him or Derek around wouldn’t be hard.

“I knew you hadn’t sealed the deal yet. But I guess, after me, Derek probably doesn’t seem like much, does he?”

Stiles scoffed and looked away again. He had no idea long how long he had been missing. He would guess a few hours, but he didn’t know how long he had been knocked out. Lifting his chin and staring at the windows above him. Through them he could see the dark blue sky tinged with red. The sun was rising. That would mean that he had been missing for about eight hours.

If his team knew he was missing, they would probably have a pretty good lead by now. And if they didn’t, well, Stiles didn’t want to think about that. He had no idea how much time he had left, or when Theo might get tired of playing with him and leave. If Theo left, Stiles would probably have a better chance of getting out of there, which Theo must know. He might even just be waiting for Stiles to get agitated enough to try to attack him.

Stiles tried to tell himself that that wouldn’t happen, but Theo knew exactly which buttons to push and when to push them to get a reaction out of Stiles. He was truly an intellectual mastermind in some ways. At least when it came to manipulation.

“You don’t know anything about me, Theo,” Stiles said, sighing heavily. “Stalking someone is not the same as getting to know them, and dating me for a month definitely doesn’t give you some magical insight to all of my thoughts.”

“Oh, but doesn’t it? I think you’ve grossly underestimated just how good I am at what I do, Stiles. I know about your mom; I know she died of frontotemporal dementia when you were eight and that after that your dad started drinking. He only pulled himself together when you came home from school with a cast on your arm once; your arm had been broken when you got into a fight with one of your classmates. If I recall correctly, he had said something about how your mom was dead and your dad an alcoholic. Kids can be so cruel.” Stiles clenched his jaw tightly and looked away. He couldn’t stand to look at Theo while he spoke.

“I know that now you have a good but strained relationship with your dad, especially since you started at the FBI, because he’s afraid you’ll get hurt. And well, he was right, wasn’t he?” Theo chuckled.

“I know you fought for a month about you joining the bureau, and I know you still haven’t told him how you got the job; by hacking into Argent arms and getting yourself arrested. I know you think he would hate you if he knew, and I know you’re right. And that’s just what I know about your family. Imagine what I know about your life. Where you eat, who you hang out with, which gym you go to. The list is almost endless. I know _everything_ about you, Stiles. Don’t forget that.”

Stiles slowly turned his head back to stare at Theo. “Alright, so you know a lot of things about me. That’s fine, I honestly don’t know why I didn’t expect you to. You are a creepy stalker piece of shit, after all. But I know things about you too, Theo. Did you forget what I do for a living? I track people down; I get all up in their business, I dig out all their dirty little secrets. And Theo, you’ve been gone for three months. We’ve been trying to find you for three months. And that means, that once I got over that shitty little stunt you pulled, and yes, I am over it –” He wasn’t, not completely, but Theo didn’t need to know that.

“Once I got over that, I put pretty much all my energy into finding you. I know everything too, Theo. I know your mom died when you were 12, of breast cancer, and that your dad turned to beer and booze to dull the pain; we’re not so different in that sense, except for the fact that my dad never hit me. He never beat me within an inch of my own life, he never put me in the hospital for a month. I bet you still have the scars from that broken beer bottle on your back. I didn’t see anything during our night together, but then, I didn’t know what to look for, did I?” Stiles knew he was being mean, but he couldn’t help it. If Theo wanted to break him, Stiles wasn’t going down without a fight.

“So once you got out of the hospital you were put in a foster home. You were, what? 14? 15? That’s when you met Gerard, isn’t it? He was the principal at one of the schools you went to. What was it they wrote in your permanent file? Anger management issues, probably stems from a history of abuse. You got into trouble a lot, and then it suddenly just… stopped. That was Gerard, wasn’t it? He took you in, claiming that you needed a strong male role model or something like that, so he could spend time with you and mold you into a perfect little apprentice.”

“There were a lot of mysterious deaths among the homeless community that winter, more than usual. But of course the police didn’t investigate it. Homeless people are always arguing and fighting and killing each other over food or places to sleep or stuff like that. But you probably knew that. Gerard definitely knew that. Did he even have to tell you what to do, or did he just ask you to meet him somewhere in the middle of the night and let you go nuts. It takes a lot of strength to beat someone to death, even a tired and cold and weak homeless person.”

“You weren’t even alive when the Reaper killings were happening, but he taught you what he did, didn’t he? Showed you newspaper clippings, pictures. He probably told you every gruesome detail of what he did to those people. And then he told you to carry on his legacy, after he was gone. Do you want me to continue?”

When he was finished speaking, Stiles was breathing heavily. He glared up at Theo, hoping to see some form of satisfying reaction on his face. Theo looked as amused as ever. Did nothing shake him? Of course it didn’t, he was a fucking psychopath.

“I see you’ve done your homework, Stiles. Good for you. Too bad you didn’t do any of this research when we were dating. That might have saved both you and the FBI a lot of time and resources. I mean, if you had just written my name into one of those fancy programs you have on your computer you could have saved yourself a lot of pain and suffering. But no, you had to be the good trusting guy. Even after Derek warned you about me you refused to believe him. You didn’t even do a basic background check. You had never met me before in your life, and you trusted me blindly. I bet you won’t make that mistake twice.” Theo winked. He actually fucking winked.

Stiles felt himself glare harder, his eyes narrowing. He hated that Theo could get to him so easily, but he couldn’t help it. He had always been an expressive person; he wore his heart on his sleeve. And even if yes, he was a good actor and somewhat good at hiding his feelings, sometimes he got overwhelmed. And this was definitely an overwhelming situation, and he couldn’t help but express his feelings. He had been stuck in the same position in the same room with the same person for god knows how many hours, and it was starting to show. He was loosing his cool, his ability to stay focused. He hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since before he was knocked out the day before, and even then he hadn’t eaten in like, three hours.

“No,” Stiles said. “I won’t. Thank you for that helpful life lesson, Theo.”

“You’re welcome.” Theo shot him a wide smile, showing both rows of pearly white teeth. Stiles wanted to pull them out of his mouth, one by one. Stiles could feel himself slipping into the anger simmering under his skin. It was growing and building and getting hotter and hotter and Stiles felt like he was going to lose himself in it. He didn’t know what would happen if he did, and he didn’t want to know, but he had a feeling he might find out.

“How are you feeling, Stiles?” Theo asked, stepping closer again. “Tired, I bet, even though you’ve slept for hours. Hungry, thirsty probably. Do you want some water?” Theo asked, sounding friendly even though Stiles knew he didn’t have a friendly bone in his body.

“I don’t want anything from you,” Stiles growled back. “Except for you to let me go, and for you to go die in a ditch somewhere so I never have to look at you again.”

Theo hummed thoughtfully. “So you’ve said. You’re starting to repeat yourself, Stiles, and to be frank, it’s kind of boring. I don’t think you want to bore me, Stiles, or I might just end up doing something stupid, just to get some excitement out of you. I might, for instance, end up having to get my little table back and do some experimenting on that beautiful pale skin of yours. Or, I could call up Kate, and ask her to come over with a few friends. The building isn’t scheduled to go down for another few hours, so we have lots of time before then. What do you say, Stiles?”

“I say, whatever it takes to buy me enough time for my team to find me and arrest you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, kudo'ing and commenting. I love you all!
> 
> Next chapter on Monday
> 
> Hmu on [tumblr](http://illusemywords.tumblr.com/)


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Oh, you still think they’re going to find you? That’s very optimistic of you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a direct continuation of the last chapter.  
> Beware the POV changes, there are quite a few

“Oh, you still think they’re going to find you? That’s very optimistic of you,” Theo said, smiling evilly. Stiles was really getting tired of his smiling. Especially with his hands tied so he couldn’t punch him.

“I choose to stay optimistic that they’re going to find me and shoot you, yes. I find it’s a lot nicer than thinking about, oh, I don’t know, that I might die here, crushed under tons of concrete while you escape and run off with Kate into a happily ever after. Are you going to run away and murder people together? Is that it?”

Theo laughed again, and Stiles grit his teeth together. The noise was getting on his nerves.

“Me and Kate? Really? You think I want her? No, we’re just … let’s say we’re just friends, although that doesn’t really cover it either. We’re colleagues, in a sense. Not that she’s a murderer, oh no. At least not in the way I am. No, Kate could never do what I do. But she helps me out sometimes, and in return I help her with what she needs. And now, I owe her a favor for her help getting you here. An eye for an eye and all that. Bringing balance to the universe or whatever. I’m sure she’ll find some very creative and grueling way for me to repay her.”

“Maybe she’ll want you to go kill yourself? I know that’s what I would want,” Stiles commented, keeping his voice purposefully calm.

Theo laughed again. “I’ve really missed that humor of yours, Stiles. You really are something. So direct. You always say what you mean, don’t you? Even if you know it’s ultimately going to end up hurting you.”

“Or maybe I just know, as I’ve said before, that my team is going to come for me, and that you’re going to jail for the rest of your miserable life. Unless you try to run, of course, because then you’ll end up getting shot. And I mean, I wouldn’t complain then either, but personally I would much rather see you suffer for the rest of your life in a state prison than let you have that quick, merciful death a shot in the back would probably be. And yes, I know, getting shot in the back might not guarantee you a quick death, but I don’t care, because even that would be too quick for you. I want you to fucking suffer.” Stiles literally spat the last words, flecks of moisture landing at Theo’s feet.

Theo didn’t seem to care. He just continued to smile at Stiles, as if he was a kid telling him what he had learned at school that day. His expression basically screamed ‘polite interest’, and it was pissing Stiles off even more.

And if that was what Theo wanted, for Stiles to become angrier than he had ever been before, he was certainly succeeding. He felt as if his entire body was red and hot, as if he was just seconds away from exploding in a spray of blood and guts and angry words tearing from his lungs.

He was seeing red, tearing furiously at his bindings, not caring that his wrists were probably chafed raw and bloody already. “Don’t fucking ignore me, Theo!” he screamed. “I’m going to fucking kill you once I get out of this chair. I swear to god, Theo, I’m going to watch the life leave your eyes until you stop breathing. I’m going to make you suffer for what you did to me, what you did to those people you killed, what you do wherever you go. You’re fucking toxic, Theo, do you know that? Everywhere you go, you spread evil and disease and hatred, and I want it to stop. I’m going to stop you.”

Stiles was breathing heavily and Theo looked positively gleeful. “I spread evil and disease and hatred, you say? Well, I don’t know about that, but it certainly seems to have worked on you. Do you hate me, Stiles? Do you want to kill me? Do you want to watch the life leave my eyes?” Theo was mocking him, and he was still fucking smiling.

“I want to wipe that smile off your face. What do you have to be so fucking happy about?”

“Well, Stiles, for one, I’m going to get away with this, whether your team find you or not. And two, even if your team does find you, which to be honest doesn’t seem that likely to me, I get to live the rest of my life knowing I broke you. You’re never going to be the same again, Stiles. Wherever you go, you’re going to see misery and pain and blood. Because you’re right, Stiles, I infected you. And you’re going to be angrier and darker and less yourself. You’re going to be void, Stiles, an echo, a shadow, of who you used to be. I made sure of that.”

* * *

“Derek, calm down, we’ll find him,” Erica promised, trying to stop Derek where he was pacing back and forth in the small apartment. The crime scene crew had left an hour ago, taking with them what little evidence they had found to analyze and look closer at.

Derek had originally been at the office, but the air felt stuffy and the office felt hot and the absence of Stiles’ voice had bothered him too much, so he had headed over to his apartment instead, Erica following him. He wasn’t sure if this was any better, but at least here he could feel like he was doing something somewhat productive.

“There has to be something we missed. Where would Theo want to take Stiles? And who is this mystery woman he got to kidnap him. She has to be pretty strong to carry him out of here, especially without anyone noticing. We know there aren’t any security cameras in the building, but are there any close by? Like, what about the surrounding buildings? We should check, I mean, someone has to have seen something. It’s not like they could just disappear into the air.”

“Hmm,” Erica said. “We should definitely look into it,” she agreed, nodding. “But I’m not sure how much it will help. I guess we could find out who the woman is, though, and that might help.”

“Exactly. Knowing who she is certainly can’t hurt. She’s probably someone we’ve already looked into. Maybe she even has a connection to Argent?” Derek felt his spirits lift at the thought of finally doing something productive in the search for Stiles. He had been missing for more than 12 hours, and Derek, as well as the rest of the team, knew that the longer he was away from them the smaller the chances of finding him alive was. But Derek couldn’t think about that, he couldn’t. It would just drive him insane.

“Okay, let’s go check. There’s a convenience store across the road, maybe they have cameras.”

They didn’t, but the clerk at the convenience store tipped them that the bank on the corner might, and there they got lucky.

“Yes, of course, we have cameras around all our banks, I’ll get someone to show you right away.”

The bank, luckily, had a camera pointed towards Stiles’ building. They fast forwarded through most of the day, but stopped just before 9 pm, when they saw someone entering the shot. A woman, wearing a dark jacket and jeans and a black hat entered the building.

Derek had only been over to Stiles’ place a handful of times, but he was sure that he had never seen her there. Yet, she felt strangely familiar. “Get that over to Danny. Tell him to run the facial recognition program. I want to know who she is,” Derek told Erica, who nodded and turned to talk to the bank employee who had shown them the tapes.

* * *

“When, yes when, I get out of here, I’m not going to fucking think about you ever again. You think you broke me? Well, think again. I’m not some fucking piece of glass that you can throw on the floor and smash into pieces. I’m more resilient than that you piece of shit,” Stiles had had it with Theo’s bullshit. He wasn’t going to let him get to him any more, not if he ever got out of there.

“Glad to see you haven’t lost that last bit of spark. Not yet at least. But that doesn’t really matter anyway, does it? Because in -,” Theo stopped to check his watch. “Three hours, this building will be leveled to the ground. And so will you.”

A pang of fear momentarily overloaded Stiles’ anger, but it didn’t last long. He didn’t have the time or the energy to linger on that. To be fair, he didn’t have the time or energy to linger on his anger either, but that didn’t stop him.

He knew he should really focus on trying to find away out of this situation, but he couldn’t help it. And besides, he couldn’t really do anything with Theo in the room. But, what he was hoping, was that Theo would leave soon, to be far away from the building when it went down.

“Okay, cool,” Stiles said, sighing. Suddenly, all the fight went out of him, and he felt himself go limp in his bonds. He really didn’t have any energy left, and honestly, he just wanted Theo to get away from him, and the only way he could think to get that done, was to stop engaging with him. After all, it was obvious he wanted to get him angry, and Stiles just didn’t have the energy anymore, so this was the obvious solution for him.

“Cool? That certainly isn’t the response I expected,” Theo said, raising one eyebrow. “But sure, it’s pretty cool. I also think it’s pretty cool how I know I’ll get away with all this, and that I know I’ll get to live out my life in peace. No one is going to be able to find me. Not even your precious team, because they’ll be too busy trying to find you.”

Stiles looked away, staring at the wall instead of engaging in what Theo was saying. He heard Theo let out an irritated huff before starting to pace, but still didn’t acknowledge him. His new technique seemed to be working, because a while later, Theo spoke again.

“Well, this has been fun,” he said, and Stiles turned his head slightly to stare at him out of the corner of his eye. “But I think it’s time for me to leave. You enjoy your last few hours of, well, life, and I’ll be sure to send some flowers to your grave. In a few years’ time, of course, when I can be sure I won’t be tracked.” Stepping up close to Stiles’ chair, Theo leaned down and planted a quick kiss on Stiles’ forehead.

“I wish it didn’t have to end this way, Stiles,” Theo said, sounding almost convincingly sad. But Stiles had learned never to trust anything Theo said, so he ignored him, choosing instead to stare blankly at the wall in front of him.

“I guess this is goodbye, then.” Would he just go already? Stiles thought angrily. He was such a fucking drama queen, Stiles almost wanted to die just so he’d get away from Theo and his drama.

And Theo did go, finally, after another minute of staring at Stiles. He exited out a door behind, Stiles’ head, and though Stiles couldn’t see the door, he clearly heard the door shut with a bang behind him.

Stiles waited what he estimated to be around five minutes just to make sure that Theo wasn’t coming back, before he started trying to get out of his bonds for real. He didn’t have much time, after all, before the building went down around him.

* * *

“Derek, I think you want to get in here,” Erica said, popping her head into the room where he was sitting. Derek got up, depositing his now empty coffee cup into the sink and following Erica into the room Danny was working in. None of them, including Danny himself, had wanted to set him up in Stiles’ office, so they found another room for him.

Leaning over Danny’s shoulder, Derek stared at the screen. “Did you get a hit?” he asked, feeling more excited than he had all day. Maybe they finally had a break in the case.

Danny nodded. “Yes, it’s Kate Argent, CEO of Argent Arms.”

Derek frowned deeply. “Kate Argent? What is she doing here?”

“Maybe she’s working with Theo?” Erica guessed. “We never did get to interview her about her father, because she was on a suspicious business trip at the time right? No one could get a hold of her.”

“Was she the one to kidnap Stiles, then? I mean, there were women’s footprints in the apartment, and she’s basically the only one we’ve seen enter the building, besides Stiles,” Derek said. “Does she come back out, Danny?”

Danny shook his head. “Not through the front door at least, but there is a black car passing by about thirty minutes after Stiles comes home. The windows are dark, so you can’t see who’s driving or if anyone is in the back or passenger seats, but I ran the license plate numbers, and it belongs to a small local business owned by the Argents. We can definitely link Kate to this.”

Derek nodded. “Okay, so, she probably had help, right? I mean, Stiles isn’t really a big guy, but I don’t think she could have carried him alone, at least not without raising suspicion.”

“And someone had to stand by with, or at least park, the car. We checked other cameras surrounding Stiles’ building, and the car arrived like, five minutes after Kate entered the building; she couldn’t have driven it. And no one came out of it while it was parked, but it did drive to the back of the building after about twenty minutes. There aren’t any cameras back there, sorry, but that might be intentional.”

“So, Kate helped Theo kidnap Stiles, since he obviously couldn’t do it himself. And then she took him … where? Where could they possibly go?” Kira wondered. By now, the rest of the team had crammed themselves into the small room, and they were all standing around Danny’s computer.

“It would have to be somewhere secluded, where they wouldn’t be disturbed. I’m sure Theo thinks he and Stiles have a lot to talk about,” Deaton said calmly, and Derek had to suppress the urge to actually growl at him.

“Somewhere secluded, but it’s probably not too far away. Theo wants us to be able to figure this out. He probably counts on it, which probably means that by the time we figure out where he’s keeping Stiles, Theo will be long gone,” Scott suggested.

“Okay,” Danny said. “Somewhere secluded but still in the city, I can’t think of any other place than the old warehouse district. I mean, it kind of fits. He’s been there before,” He shot a quick look at Derek from the corner of his eye before immediately looking back at the screen.

“And we’ve been there before, too, chasing him, so he might have chosen it because it’s a place we would think to look,” Deaton said.

“Wait,” Derek said. “I just thought of something. The building I went to last time, the one where Theo attacked me. Wasn’t that scheduled to be demolished?” he asked, dreading the answer.

A heavy silence fell over the room as Danny typed, faster than Derek had ever seen. “Yes,” he said eventually, pointing at something on the screen. “It’s scheduled to go down today, in about thirty minutes.”

“Go,” Deaton said, and everyone moved for the door at once. “Danny, try to contact someone at the site and ask them to wait for us. They need to go through the building again. Everyone else, we’re heading to the warehouse. If we race there we might get there just in time.”

No one spoke as they quickly headed down to the underground garage connected to the building. They quickly got into their SUVs, two in each, and raced towards where they believed Stiles would be.

“I can’t get through to anyone, no one’s answering,” Danny told them, urging them all to drive a little bit faster, turning on their sirens.

“Keep trying,” Derek heard Erica say.

Twenty minutes later, Derek sped into the parking lot behind the buildings, barely remembering to grab the keys from the ignition before throwing the door open and running like hell towards the construction site where he can see a small group gathered, a few hundred feet away from the building Derek remembered so vividly.

“Stop,” he yelled, but it was too late. Someone had already pressed the button, and Derek came to a stop as he saw the building come crashing down, a cloud of grey smoke rising. He heard the glass of the windows shatter, saw them fall from the sky and into the dark mass that was smoke and concrete and metal. And Stiles was still inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for everyone who read, kudo'ed and commented! I can't believe this fic has more than 10k hits. 
> 
> [tumblr](http://illusemywords.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Next chapter on Thursday!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He saw a flash of red hair, Lydia, standing in front of him. “Derek,” she said again, gently. “Look at me.”
> 
> He did. He shifted his gaze so he was looking at her, and her pale face finally came into focus. “He’s gone,” he whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to find out what happened to Stiles!
> 
> Beware the POV changes

Derek felt numb. Actually, he didn’t know if he even felt that. He didn’t feel anything. His senses were numbed, his vision blurry. He could hear someone calling his name but it was distant, muted, as if someone was standing far away and yelling his name at him. Stiles was still in there. That was the only thought penetrating his clouded mind. Stiles was still in there.

Someone stood in front of him, snapping her fingers, and finally, Derek saw something. He saw a flash of red hair, Lydia, standing in front of him. “Derek,” she said again, gently. “Look at me.”

He did. He shifted his gaze so he was looking at her, and her pale face finally came into focus. “He’s gone,” he whispered, voice probably barely audible, but she seemed to have heard it.

“Calm down, Derek, we don’t know that. Please, calm down. We need you to be clear headed in this right now. I know it hurts, Derek, I know. But I need you to focus. Do it for me, for us. Do it for him.”

That shocked Derek into moving, even if it was just taking a step back. “For him,” she had said, and he recoiled as if he had been slapped in the face. “For him,” he repeated, still feeling numb. He could do this, for him.

Derek ran a hand over his face, hoping to clear his mind a little. It worked, but only so much. He couldn’t allow himself to think about Stiles if he wanted to get this job done. Just as before, he needed to be calm and clear headed. Just as he had been all day, when they had been looking for him.

“Okay,” he said. “I can do this.”

Lydia smiled tiredly at him. “You can do this,” she repeated back to him. “Come on, let’s join the others.” She grabbed his hand and tugged him gently towards the building that had been in front of them mere minutes earlier.

Derek nodded, looking around. He hadn’t even noticed the other people arriving around them, but they obviously had. They’d probably gotten there seconds after Derek. They had probably seen exactly the same thing Derek had seen; the building going down in a cloud of smoke and stone.

Looking over to the group of people he had been running towards before, Derek saw that Deaton, Scott, Erica and Kira were already there, talking to a group of very shocked looking workers.

Moving his legs took more work than Derek had expected, but he managed somehow, putting one leg in front of the other.

“We did a sweep this morning, I swear, no one was in there,” someone was telling Deaton, sounding desperate.

“Obviously your check wasn’t good enough,” Derek bit out as soon as he was close enough.

Deaton turned around to stare at him thoughtfully, but didn’t say anything else. “Derek, come on,” Scott said, sounding tired. “It wasn’t their fault.”

“Oh yeah? Then whose fault was it?” Derek demanded, feeling anger surge through his body.

“Theo’s,” Scott said softly, and Derek deflated some. He knew he was right, but Theo wasn’t here to take his anger right now, and Derek wanted to let it out on someone.

“I know. I’m sorry,” Derek said, directing his apology at the man he had shouted at, who nodded understandingly.

“No worries,” he assured Derek.

“Good, everyone’s friends again,” Erica said. “Now let’s go find Stiles.”

The team headed into the construction site that was now a possible crime scene, following after the foreman and one of his workers. They all wore hardhats for safety. Derek couldn’t stop thinking about how Stiles was the one who needed safety right now, and yet he was the only one on the team who didn’t have it.

* * *

Stiles was coughing. That’s all he really knew. Oh, and that his head hurt like a motherfucker. And, come to think of it, so did most of his body. He was lying facedown in something that felt like grass, but there was rocks and dust all around him, so Stiles couldn’t see much.

He turned his head slowly, opening his eyes for a second before immediately shutting them again. Nope. Even with his eyes closed, Stiles felt the world spinning around and around. Why wouldn’t it stop spinning?

He decided to take stock of his body, starting with his toes and moving his way up. He could move his toes without problem. His right ankle kind of hurt, but he could move it. His knees seemed fine, his fingers were okay. His shoulders ached, but didn’t seem overly damaged. Now, his head, he was worried about; he was pretty sure there was a cut on his forehead that was bleeding into his eye, and the area around the cut was throbbing painfully.

He carefully tried moving his arms, finding that they didn’t hurt too badly. He moved them under his body, but didn’t have the energy to lift his body from the ground.

He didn’t remember what had happened the last few minutes, but he had a pretty good idea. He had finally broken his chair, getting out of his bonds at last, and had bolted for the exit Theo had left through as fast as his weak legs would take him.

He had just gotten the door open and had gotten maybe ten or fifteen feet away when he heard the building start to collapse behind him, and he assumed that the shockwave had sent him sprawling into the grass, knocking him unconscious for a few seconds after he fell.

Opening his eyes again, carefully, Stiles still couldn’t see anything, but it didn’t hurt as much as the first time he had tried. He glanced around himself, but the air was still too full of dust for him to really register any of his surroundings. His ears were ringing badly, his throat felt clogged up, almost as if he couldn’t breathe. He knew he had to get away from there, into fresh air, but he didn’t know if he had the strength. 

Gathering his last bits of energy, Stiles managed to carefully lift himself to his hands and knees. Grateful that his knees and wrists seemed okay, he slowly started to crawl his way in what he hoped was the opposite direction of the collapsed building.

When he could finally see the green grass and feel a fresh breeze on his face, Stiles collapsed back to the ground, breathing heavily. He could feel his mind shutting down with exhaustion, seeing the black spots on the edge of his vision that had become all too familiar to him in the last 24 hours.

* * *

They didn’t find anything. The dust was finally lifting, the air getting clearer by the second. Derek tried his best not to think about Stiles, and how he was most likely buried under tons of rock and metal and glass. If he was, he surely hadn’t survived it. Derek found it hard not to think about it, but he couldn’t afford to let his emotions get in the way. Not if he wanted to find Stiles.

They were heading into the are where the building had stood, carefully stepping around pieces of unstable concrete. It was all a giant pile of concrete and glass and bent pieces of metal.

When the dust cleared, Derek saw that there was no possible way that Stiles could have survived the demolition. If he hadn’t been crushed by the sheer weight of it all, he’d been cut by the glass, or impaled on a metal rod, blood trickling his his chest, his neck. He could simply be alive, but trapped in a pocket of air. His leg or his arm could be trapped, leaving him unable to try to get away.

Derek tore his eyes away from the rubble, staring instead beyond the pile of concrete. There was a long patch of grass stretching out towards the other warehouses. That was probably the only grass for miles, everything surrounding it drab and grey and cold and lifeless.

Like a small flower blooming from a crack in the concrete. A drop of life in the middle of all that death. That was what Stiles was to him. He was a breath of life, in the middle of all the death and destruction they saw every day.

It was why he couldn’t afford to lose him. He couldn’t lose one of the few things that made his work bearable. One of the few things that didn’t make him want to buckle under the pressure of all the evil he saw every day. He couldn’t lose him.

As they made their way, across the property, the dust cleared more and more, until Derek could see the entire field of grass. There were a few larger pieces of concrete and some misshapen metal rods, and a … a lump of fabric? No, that couldn’t be it. The closer he got, the more he could make out a distinct shape. A distinct human shape, to be exact.

“Stiles?” he said, feeling everyone’s gaze turn to look at him. He started moving faster. “Stiles!” he yelled, full on running now. The body lying on the grass didn’t move, not even as Derek kept yelling.

The others seemed to catch on to what he was seeing, and quickly ran after him. He vaguely heard someone calling for an ambulance through their walkie talkie.

Derek was the first to reach him, falling to his knees beside him and carefully pushing him over onto his back. Derek’s breath hitched as he got a look at Stiles. He looked paler than usual, with a blooming bruise forming on his right cheekbone. He had a cut on his forehead that looked serious, although that might just be because of the amount of blood seeping from it.

Lines of blood ran down Stiles’ face, past his chin and down his neck. His shirt had bloodstains on it. His eyes were closed, but he was still breathing.

“Stiles? Can you hear me?” No response. “Stiles, please, please answer me.” His throat felt tight, as if something was stuck, strangling him slowly.

“Derek,” Scott said, appearing at his side, putting a hand gently down on his shoulder. “You need to move. The EMTs need to reach him.” Derek let himself get pulled away as two EMTs arrived with a gurney and a case with a red cross on it.

Together, they carefully lifted Stiles onto the gurney, lifting him and the gurney together and starting to move back over to the other side of the rubble, where Derek assumed the ambulance was waiting.

Derek followed after them blindly, not taking his eyes off Stiles and stumbling as he went. He had to be alright. He just had to.

* * *

When Stiles came to again, he was on his back, lying on something soft. There was something, a mask, his brain provided, over his face, and he felt the cool sting of pure oxygen entering his lungs.

He opened his eyes but everything was blurry. There was a bright light above him, blinding him and making seeing even harder than it already was. Someone was standing beside him, staring down at him and holding his hand. He thought they were speaking, but his ears were still ringing, so he barely heard anything.

On the other side of whatever he was lying on, someone else stood, holding his wrist in their hands and seemingly checking his pulse. He was in an ambulance, it seemed. His vision cleared bit by bit until he could make out the EMT standing beside him.

Turning his head, he looked at the person standing on the other side of him, squinting up at Derek. Wait, what? Derek? Derek was here?

“Derek?” he croaked, barely eligible through his throaty voice and the oxygen mask numbing the sound.

“Shh, Stiles, don’t talk. Just rest. You’ll be fine, we’re almost at the hospital.”

Stiles frowned. The hospital? No, they were just at the construction site. How could they almost be at the hospital? How long had he been out? The last thing he remembered was crawling away from the dust and debris of the demolished building. He had just gotten out into the fresh air when he passed out again, probably from the blood loss from the cut on his forehead.

And now that he thought about it, something was pressing against his forehead, probably a bandage. He wondered if they had stopped the bleeding, or if blood was still leaving his body. The thought made him kind of queasy, and he doubted anyone would appreciate him puking in the ambulance, so he decided to change his train of thought.

How had he been found? He guessed that he had gotten far enough away that they had to go looking for him. He was just glad he had gotten out of the building and that the shockwave hadn’t killed him.

He must have been unconscious already when they found him, because he definitely didn’t remember being found. Wouldn’t he remember being found? He should remember. He should remember. He knew he was working himself up, but he couldn’t help it. What if it was just a dream? What if he was still lying out in a field of grass somewhere, living this final dream just so he could die in peace.

He knew he was being ridiculous; he knew this shouldn’t be what he automatically thought was happening, but he couldn’t help himself. His heart was racing, his breath was coming faster and faster, fogging up the oxygen mask still strapped to his face. He was panicking.

“Stiles, Stiles, you need to calm down,” Derek said, eyes frantically wiping over his face and to the EMT who was fumbling for something in her first aid kit. Stiles’ eyes snapped to Derek’s face, but he couldn’t stop his racing heart.

Finally, Derek tore his gaze away and looked instead at the EMT. Stiles followed his gaze to where the EMT had straightened out and was holding up a needle. If anyone thought that this was going to help Stiles calm down, they were sorely mistaken. If he had been panicking before, he was even worse now.

Using the last of his strength, Stiles thrashed wildly on the table, so much that it took both Derek and another EMT to hold him down tightly enough for the first EMT to push the needle into his arm, pushing down on the plunger.

Stiles shook his head. No, not again, he didn’t want to do this again. He had been drugged into unconsciousness too many times in the last 24 hours, he didn’t want to do it again. But it was too late, he already felt himself sinking back onto the table, too numb to fight anymore. The adrenaline was quickly burning out, being replaced by the numbing feeling of the narcotic pumping through his veins instead.

The last thing he heard, was Derek saying his name. “Everything is going to be alright, Stiles. Just rest now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there you have it, Stiles is okay ... Or, well, he's alive at least ... 
> 
> hmu on [tumblr](http://illusemywords.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Thank you for reading, kudo'ing and commenting! I love you all! 
> 
> Next chapter on Monday


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles woke up again, for what felt like the hundredth time that day. This time, he was in a hospital room, feeling groggy and tired. There was a steady beeping noise coming from somewhere beside his bed, a heart monitor, he realized.
> 
> Opening his eyes, he found that there were tubes connected to his left arm, leading to somewhere he couldn’t quite see, but probably to more machines keeping him alive.
> 
> Scott and Derek were in the room too, both sleeping in very uncomfortable looking chairs. The room was dark, and with a quick look towards the large window on the wall, he found that it was dark outside as well. The middle of the night then. He saw light streaming in underneath the door from the hallway outside.

Stiles woke up again, for what felt like the hundredth time that day. This time, he was in a hospital room, feeling groggy and tired. There was a steady beeping noise coming from somewhere beside his bed, a heart monitor, he realized.

Opening his eyes, he found that there were tubes connected to his left arm, leading to somewhere he couldn’t quite see, but probably to more machines keeping him alive.

Scott and Derek were in the room too, both sleeping in very uncomfortable looking chairs. The room was dark, and with a quick look towards the large window on the wall, he found that it was dark outside as well. The middle of the night then. He saw light streaming in underneath the door from the hallway outside.

Through the small window in the door, Stiles could see a police officer standing guard outside. So, not totally safe, then. That probably meant that they hadn’t been able to catch Theo yet.

He doubted that they would find him. He was pretty sure he would have to resign himself to live a life of looking over his shoulder everywhere he went. He couldn’t really imagine that they would ever catch Theo. Not unless he wanted them to find him. He had been trained by Gerard Argent, had Kate Argent as an ally. He had all but unlimited resources, and connections everywhere, it seemed.

Stiles tore his eyes away from the guard at the door, Stiles turned his gaze to Derek instead. Where he would normally be all hard lines and frowns, in his sleep, he looked softer, gentler somehow. He looked younger, more vulnerable. Like he let his guard down only in sleep, scared to let anyone inside. Stiles wondered if Derek had always been like that, or if someone had made him like that. He didn’t know which alternative sounded like the worst one, but he knew that he didn’t want Derek to hurt. Ever.

And Derek might not be the one in need of protection. At least not right now. But that wouldn’t stop Stiles from trying. And he was starting to think that Derek might feel the same way about Stiles.

Stiles stared down at himself, trying to assess what injuries he had. Obviously, he had lost blood from his head, and he guessed that he might possibly have a concussion. His wrists were wrapped in pristine white bandages. His right ankle seemed to be wrapped up too. Apart from that, he had a few bandages stretched across various points on his body. There was one wrapped around his upper right arm. He didn’t remember his arm hurting, but he had been practically running on nothing but adrenaline at the time, so he wasn’t too surprised.

There was another bandage around his ribs, which he guessed meant that he might have a few bruised, if not broken, ribs. He guessed it was supposed to hurt more, but he was probably also on several different pain meds, to keep him calm and to keep him from hurting himself more than he already had.

He guessed that he probably also had the beginnings of a bruise on his cheek, from Theo slapping him repeatedly across the face. That was certainly going to be fun looking at for the next few weeks.

Stiles wondered idly how long he would have to stay in the hospital, and when he could go back to work. He wondered how long he would have to have a security detail following him around, which was no doubt going to happen now, he thought bitterly. He was a cop’s son; he should be able to protect himself. But it had been years since he had even touched a gun; he hadn’t since joining the bureau.

And it had been even longer since he had taken any of the self defense classes his dad had signed him up for when he was younger. But then again, they didn’t teach you self defense against being drugged and kidnapped by your evil psycho ex-boyfriend’s evil psycho friend, so he wasn’t really at fault either way.

He knew that that was what everyone were going to tell him; it wasn’t your fault. And even after he had reassured them that he knew, he knew it wasn’t his fault; it was Theo’s, they wouldn’t have been in this mess if it wasn’t for Theo. … And Stiles’ bad judgment. And Stiles’ inability to listen to what Derek had told him. And Stiles’ stubbornness. And maybe just Stiles in general.

But they would tell him it wasn’t his fault. And he would say that he knew, that he understood that, that he didn’t blame himself. And he was sure that, once they got to that point, he wouldn’t. But he couldn’t help himself right now. He couldn’t help blame himself for all the people who had died by Theo’s hand; for all the hurt Theo had caused while they were dating. For Theo attacking and almost killing Derek.

Really, it was just a stroke of luck that Derek had been unconscious, otherwise he wouldn’t have been here to sleep in Stiles’ hospital room. And Stiles knew that if that had happened; if Derek had died, he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself.

He knew he shouldn’t be thinking about that, especially when he was hooked up to a machine that measured his heart beat and notified the nurses when it was acting weirdly. Carefully easing himself back onto the bed, Stiles decided to try to get some more sleep. He could deal with everything tomorrow.

And besides, as it usually did, he felt certain that everything would make more sense in the morning. He shouldn’t let his anxiety push him into having a panic attack, especially when he knew that this wasn’t his fault. That’s what he tried to convince himself at least, and that would be a lot easier in the light of day.

Closing his eyes, Stiles determinedly evened out his breathing and let his mind wander, away from the long day he had had and the events of the past few months. Slowly, he drifted away into the world of sleep, where he knew no one could really hurt him.

* * *

He woke up again a few hours later, blinking his tired eyes open and staring around at an empty room. Scott and Derek were gone, hopefully somewhere other than this damn hospital, but Stiles didn’t really believe that. He knew that if the same thing had happened to either of them, he wouldn’t have been able to leave either.

Sure enough, mere minutes after he had woken up, Derek appeared in the doorway with a steaming cup of coffee. He froze on the spot when he noticed that Stiles was awake and watching him. Several tense seconds passed with them just staring at each other, neither breaking the eye contact.

And then, suddenly, Derek jumped into motion, stepping into the room and quietly closing the door behind himself. He put his coffee down on the nearest table and rushed over to Stiles’ bedside.

“Stiles,” he said. “How are you feeling?” He looked so worried and nervous that Stiles almost laughed. He refrained himself from doing so though, since it would probably come across as pretty insensitive. Derek had obviously worried a lot about him. Or they might just think he was insane, and lock him up right away.

“I’m okay,” he said eventually. “I think. Or, I mean, I’m not, like, _okay_ okay, obviously, considering the fact that my psychotic ex-boyfriend kidnapped me and left me to die in a collapsing building. Have you found him?” Smooth change of topic, Stiles, very smooth.

Derek frowned and looked away, as if he was unsure whether or not he should tell him something. “Just tell me,” Stiles insisted, and from the look on Derek’s face he could tell that he had been right about what he had been thinking. “I can handle it,” he promised, voice softer.

Derek stared intently at him for another few moments before nodding and looking away. “We haven’t found him yet,” he said, finally. “But everyone is back at the base looking for him. It’s the only reason Scott and the others aren’t here. Scott was here last night, but –“

“I know,” Stiles interrupted, looking down at his lap. “I woke up last night and saw you guys. You shouldn’t have slept here; you need to get some real rest.”

Derek rolled his eyes at him. “You’re the one in the hospital bed, but you’re telling us we need to rest? You’re crazy.”

Stiles pouted and looked away, trying to hide his small smile. He didn’t want Derek to see it.

“So,” Derek said when he felt sure that Stiles wasn’t going to say anything else. “Right, we were here last night. So was the rest of the team, but they went home around ten to get some rest. We’re all being protected by the bureau,” Derek said quickly when he saw that Stiles was about to interrupt him again. “No one goes home alone. Everyone is safe.”

Stiles sank back into the bed, feeling relieved. No one else was getting hurt because of him. He would make sure of it. “Like I said, everyone is currently back at the office or out looking for Theo. They’re coming by later, I think, especially now that they’ll know you’re awake. Speaking of that, I should probably go tell a nurse or a doctor or something. I’m sure they want to talk to you about your injuries and stuff. We can talk more later.”

Derek got up and moved towards the door. Stiles whimpered pitifully before he could help himself, causing Derek to whip back around and rush towards him. Stiles was already shaking his head, even before Derek opened his mouth to ask if he was hurting.

“Sorry,” Stiles said, blinking away sudden tears in his eyes before they could fall. “Sorry. I just. Could you stay?” He felt so pathetic, being scared of being alone. He knew Theo couldn’t get to him, but he couldn’t help feeling frightened anyway.

Derek’s face softened from worry into … something else. Affection? Something warm. “Of course,” he said, sitting back down. “We can just use the call button, and they’ll come to us. Don’t worry, I’m not going to leave you.” Derek reached over into Stiles’ lap to grab one of his hands, holding it in both of his.

Stiles nearly gagged at how domestic it all felt. He hated that he felt instantly calmer when Derek was near him. He hated the warm feeling that rested in the pit of his stomach every time Derek smiled at him.

Stiles had to tear his eyes away from where his hand was enveloped in Derek’s, choosing instead to locate the call button Derek had mentioned, which would let the nurses know he was awake. And sure enough, just a few minutes later a brown haired woman with dark eyes stepped into the room, turning off the alarm and heading over to the bed.

“Melissa?” Stiles asked, incredulous. He hadn’t realized that they were at Melissa’s, Scott’s mom’s, hospital, but once he knew he couldn’t stop smiling. He hadn’t seen her in too long, both him and Scott having been too busy to plan anything other than casual movie nights with each other. Stiles usually spent thanksgiving with them, but this year he had decided to go home to his dad instead of having him come all the way out to Quantico.

He knew that had disappointed his dad, since he had also loved thanksgiving at the McCall’s, but this year he had decided that he wanted to go home instead. It had been a tiring period, a lot of difficult cases taking up his time. So he had gone home, and cooked for his father, and then, the day after, they went to see his mother’s grave. It had been nice going home, getting away from all the stress and horrible things he saw on a daily basis. Going back to his apartment, he had felt reinvigorated, as if he had been slowly running out of energy and now he was all charged up again. It felt great.

And now he got to see Melissa again, who was smiling at him in that warm, motherly way she had been doing since they first met. Stiles didn’t know if Scott had told him about his mom, or if Melissa simply had that kind of motherly instinct, but Stiles appreciated it a lot, even if he never commented on it.

“How are you feeling, Stiles?” Melissa asked, smiling down at him and grabbing the remote for the bed, slowly lifting the bed until he was in a seated position.

“Considering all that’s happened, not too bad,” he said with a shrug, ignoring the way Derek’s hands tightened around his own when it moved. As if Derek didn’t want to let go. The stupid, gross, warm, nice feeling in his stomach seemed to agree.

Melissa hummed and nodded, moving to the other side of the bed to look at the various machines and tubes connected to and gathering information from Stiles’ body. She hummed thoughtfully again before turning back to Stiles.

“So, doc, what’s the damage?” Stiles asked, making Melissa laugh. Derek sighed heavily beside him, and Stiles was sure that if he had turned his head he would have seen him rolling his eyes at him.

“As always, Stiles, I’m not a doctor. But I’m going to go get one, and then she can tell you all about your injuries. Give me a minute. Derek, make sure he doesn’t get himself in any more trouble while I’m gone.” She fixed them both with a stern gaze before exiting the room and shutting the door behind her.

Stiles looked over at Derek again, and gently tugged his hand out of Derek’s. “Thank you for saving me.” Stiles held Derek’s gaze as he spoke, trying to get the words out clearly. “Not just you, but everyone else too, but since you’re the only one here I figured I should just …” He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I thought I was going to die in that warehouse,” he said finally. “And the hope that you were coming to save me was the only thing that stopped me from going crazy. From giving up.”

Derek was silent, listening to Stiles speak. He let him get it all out of his system without interrupting him even once. “Just, listening to him, seeing how he acted. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. I can’t believe I didn’t notice how insane he is.” Stiles shook his head, closing his eyes and falling silent.

“It wasn’t your fault, Stiles, you know that. Theo was playing you. He’s an actor, he knew exactly what he needed to show you and what he needed to keep hidden. This time he knew that he didn’t have to hide anymore. He knew he could show you who he really is. Do you want to talk about what happened? You can tell me if you want to. I’ll be here and listen, whenever you need me.”

Stiles was silent for a long time, not looking up or opening his eyes. He just sat there, silently, thinking and breathing and letting it all sink in. “He kissed me,” he said eventually, still not looking up. “I felt like I was going to throw up when he put his tongue in my mouth. I was so scared that he was going to go further. That he was going to touch me, rape me. I never want to see him again.”

Taking a deep breath, Stiles quieted down for a moment, biting his lip as he contemplated what to say next. Finally, he looked up. “He said – he said that he had broken me. That I’m … void. That wherever I go from now on, I’ll just see pain and anger and evil all around me. He said that he’d won. I don’t know if I believe him or not.”

Stiles made a hurt noise, curling in on himself, and it was almost as if a dam had broken, releasing everything Stiles had been too afraid to say. He didn’t want Derek to hate him. He didn’t want Derek to tell him Theo was right. He didn’t want to know what Derek thought about him. He just wanted this all to be over. Tears flooded Stiles’ eyes and ran down his cheeks before he could stop them. They dripped off his face and down onto the blanket covering his body, leaving tiny, dark blue dots of moisture spreading in the fabric.

He could feel himself gasping for air as the tears kept coming. He couldn’t breathe. He felt cold all over, shivering violently. His hands were shaking.

Derek was up and standing by his bed in an instant. Grabbing Stiles face, Derek gently tilted his chin up so he was looking at Derek through his tears. “Stiles, look at me.” Stiles did. His hands were still shaking. “You’re not broken. You’re not broken, Stiles. I promise you that. Whatever he told you, whatever he did, whatever he made you think, you’re not broken. You’re too good, too pure, too important, to let someone like him break you.”

“But what - what if I’m not?” Stiles cried, hiccupping through his sobs. “What if he did break me? What am I supposed to do then? How can I fix this?”

“Stiles, even if he did manage to break you, we would find a way to fix it, okay? You would find a way to fix it. I care too much about you to let someone like Theo do that to you, okay? You’re better than that. You’re better than him. Better than he’ll ever be. You didn’t deserve what happened to you, no one does, but it still happened. And we are going to deal with it. Together. You and me and the rest of the team and Melissa and your dad and everyone else, because you know what, Stiles? People care about you. They can’t help it. You come into people’s lives, and you do your thing and you talk their ears off and you make them get to know you. And once someone gets to know you they care, Stiles. You make people care. You’re too good for people not to. And you may not believe me, but I promise you it’s true. I promise."

Stiles was still sniffling quietly, trying to get himself to stop crying. He shook his head harshly. “No, Derek, stop, please. You don’t know me. You don’t know that about me. I’m annoying and loud and I never shut up and people don’t like me. They tolerate me. They just put up with me because I’m useful. And I know I am, I know I’m useful. I’m fucking fantastic at my job. But I’m not a great person. I’m not loveable, or nice, or even likeable. Not like Scott is, not like Kira, not like –“

“Shut up. Just stop it. Stiles. Look at me. Fucking look at me. Does it look like I’m a likeable person? No, this is what an unlikeable person looks like, Stiles. The only people I ever meet outside of work are my family, mainly my sisters since everyone else lives in California. And Braeden? Sure, she liked me, to a certain extent. She liked me up until the point where she didn’t anymore, when I became too difficult, too much of a burden for her to bother. Stiles, I’m unlikeable, I’m broken. You’re not. Trust me.”

Stiles stared at Derek, shocked. He was silent for minutes, and Derek silently stood there, hands fisted at his sides as he waited for Stiles to speak. He was thinking that he would desperately like to disappear, melt into the floor, run out of the room to find a small quiet place to calm down in. But he had promised Stiles that he wasn’t going to leave him, and he wouldn’t break that promise. Not when Stiles needed him.

“You’re not a bad person,” Stiles whispered finally, staring up at Derek with wide eyes. “Derek, you’re not a bad person.”

Derek shook his head, opening his mouth to say something, but it was in that exact moment that Melissa opened the door, entering with a woman in tow Stiles assumed was the doctor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmu on [tumblr](http://illusemywords.tumblr.com/)
> 
> We're nearing the end of this fic! In total there will be 17 chapters and then a shorter epilogue.
> 
> Next chapter on Thursday! 
> 
> And, as always, thank you to everyone who read, kudo'd and commented!


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melissa stared between the two men, unsure of what to do. “Everything okay in here?” she asked gently, hoping that they hadn’t interrupted anything too severe. She’d hate to meddle somewhere she had no business being, but Stiles really should talk to the doctor, sooner rather than later.
> 
> Stiles opened his mouth to speak but Derek violently shook his head before he could say anything, sitting back down in his chair and trying to unclench his hands. Stiles stared at him intently, but Derek didn’t look up to meet his gaze, even as he felt it burning on the top of his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stiles and Derek finally have a talk that probably would have saved them both a lot of trouble

Melissa stared between the two men, unsure of what to do. “Everything okay in here?” she asked gently, hoping that they hadn’t interrupted anything too severe. She’d hate to meddle somewhere she had no business being, but Stiles really should talk to the doctor, sooner rather than later.

Stiles opened his mouth to speak but Derek violently shook his head before he could say anything, sitting back down in his chair and trying to unclench his hands. Stiles stared at him intently, but Derek didn’t look up to meet his gaze, even as he felt it burning on the top of his head.

“Right,” Melissa said, clearly not believing them. Stepping closer to Stiles’ bed, Melissa gestured to the woman who had entered the room with her. The doctor had black hair tied up in a tight bun on the top of her head, light brown skin and darker brown eyes. She looked like the kind of woman who could tell you exactly what you wanted to know without actually giving you any information. She wore a pristinely clean white lab coat and was holding a file in her hands, presumably containing Stiles’ medical history.

“I’m doctor Marin Morell,” she introduced herself, holding out a hand for Stiles to shake, which Stiles took.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Stiles muttered, letting go of her hand and letting it fall limply into his lap.

“Now,” she said, opening the file to skim through the contents. “Mr. Stilinski, you’ve been through quite a lot in the last few days.”

Stiles snorted. That was the understatement of the century. Doctor Morell ignored him. “You have a mild concussion, two bruised ribs, some bruising on one cheek, a fairly shallow cut on your forehead that lost you a lot of blood, and you twisted your ankle pretty badly. That might hurt for a while, so I recommend using crutches for a few weeks after you get out of here. You also have pretty bad rope burn on your wrists that we had to wrap up. Most of the injuries, with the exception of the rope burn and the bruising, and possibly also the ribs, came from the explosion. You’re really quite lucky that you got away without any more harm being done to you. Physically, at least. I’m confident that you’ll make a full recovery, and I estimate that we can release you in a few days. We’d like to keep you for observation until then, in case of any complication with your concussion, but other than that I’m not too worried. Now, do you have any questions?”

Stiles stared at her, letting the information sink in. He wasn’t too badly hurt, and he figured he already had all the information he needed about his injuries. “Did anyone talk to my dad?” he asked, looking around the room. “He needs to know, right? Oh god, I was supposed to call him last night. He must be worried sick.”

“Calm down, Stiles, I called him,” Melissa reassured him, and Stiles fell back against the bed. “He knows what’s happened.”

“What did he say?” Stiles swallowed heavily, not sure if he really wanted to know what the answer was.

“He was, understandably, very worried. I called him as soon as we found you, and I’ve kept him updated. He’s on a plane right now, and he’ll be here in a few hours. He’ll be happy to know that you’re awake and talking, as usual.” Melissa smiled a little at that, and Stiles didn’t know if he should feel offended or not.

“He knows you’re going to be okay,” Derek told him softly, causing Stiles to turn his head to look at him. Stiles stared at him for a long time, as if he was searching his face for something. Derek didn’t know if he found it or not, but eventually he nodded and looked away.

“Can I get up?” he asked suddenly, looking sharply at the doctor.

She stared at him steadily. “Do you have anywhere you need to be?”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “I have to pee.”

“Well, I don’t see why that should be a problem. It will do you good to move a little. Just stay put for a few minutes while I go get you a pair of crutches. If you think you can’t hold you I’m sure Melissa or Agent Hale here will be willing to help you to the bathroom.

Stiles’ gaze flickered momentarily to Derek’s face before dashing away again. “Yes, I can wait,” Stiles said eventually. The doctor merely shrugged, turning and moving towards the door and disappearing.

“Will you be good in here by yourself?” Melissa asked, and Stiles nodded quickly. “Great,” she said, smiling. “I’ll come by with some lunch in a little bit, okay? Get some rest, Stiles.”

And then they were alone once more, Melissa’s departure leaving a heavy silence behind. Stiles and Derek sat there, in the same room, neither of them speaking or looking at each other until the doctor came back and helped Stiles out of bed. He had to be careful to maneuver all the tubes he was connected to, wincing as Dr. Morell removed them one by one, leaving only the IV which he could take with him to the bathroom. Stiles tried not to feel too self conscious about the flimsy hospital gown he was wearing.

He let the doctor adjust the crutches to him so that he would be able to use them, and then awkwardly made his way over to the bathroom. It would take a while to get used to the crutches and the way they slowed him down. It had been quite some time since he had had to use crutches, after all; not since he was still in high school and had injured his leg during cross country practice.

Exiting the bathroom, careful to not pull too much on the IV in his arm as he used the crutches and simultaneously tried to roll the IV stand in front of himself. When he was back in bed, he was breathing heavily, thankful that he could lie back down.

The doctor turned the heart monitor back on and made sure everything was as it should be before leaving. He was alone with Derek again.

“I don’t want things to be awkward between us,” Stiles said, looking over at Derek.

Derek stared at him, looking surprised. “I don’t want that either,” he answered. “I never wanted that. And I’m sorry if I made it that way. I guess I should have told you how I felt a long time ago.”

Stiles tilted his head slightly. What was Derek saying? “How do you feel exactly?” This could go either way, and Stiles was suddenly feeling incredibly nervous. He didn’t want Derek to hate him, but he didn’t really see how this could go any other way. ‘I don’t like you. I think you’re annoying. I only put up with you because I have to.’ Those were all things Stiles had heard before, on multiple occasions. Of course he didn’t want that to be what Derek was going to say, but he didn’t want to get his hopes up either.

Just as Stiles was really getting into his spiral of shame and regret and everything bad and evil and maybe Theo had been right after all and maybe he was broken and maybe he didn’t deserve to be loved and of course Derek didn’t love him. Why would he even like him? Stiles should be glad he even tolerated him, they way Stiles acted. He was so annoying and weird and stupid and loud and he never shut up and –

“I like you." Which what? What had he just said? "I like you," Derek repeated as if knowing that Stiles didn’t comprehend it the first time. "I like you a lot and I want to go out with you, if you'll have me." If you'll have me. What the fuck. Was Stiles supposed to say no to that? What did Derek expect? He was looking at him like he was expecting Stiles to honestly turn him down, as if Stiles hadn’t spent years pining silently after Derek while trying to keep his cool around him. The flirting and the joking around and the babe and the sourwolves and everything. How had Derek not seen what he was saying? It didn’t make any sense to him, honestly. Was Derek really that stupid?

“Are you really that stupid?” he asked out loud, finally, and immediately regretted it when he saw the way Derek’s face fell. “No, no, wait. Sorry,” he backtracked, hitting himself in the face with the hand not currently hooked up to an IV. “That’s not what I meant. Just – Just give me a minute okay. I didn’t exactly expect this today.”

Derek frowned. “Do you want me to leave, or?” Derek asked, looking very unsure of himself. And that was an expression Stiles had never seen on Derek’s face.

“No, don’t. Don’t leave. Just, give me a second to actually think before I speak for once. I want to get this right.” Taking a deep breath, Stiles fell quiet again. He needed to get this right.

And Derek waited, like the fucking perfect human being he was, looking down at his hands and seemingly pretending he wasn’t going to explode with curiosity and nervousness waiting for what Stiles was going to say.

Stiles looked around the hospital room, trying not to look at Derek because that would ruin it. If he looked at Derek, he wouldn’t be able to collect himself, much less his thoughts. And he needed to collect his thoughts. He needed it desperately. Because he couldn’t hurt Derek, not anymore than he already had. He needed to get this right.

Finally, he looked over at Derek again and found him watching him. Taking another deep breath, Stiles finally spoke. “So, the thing is, I like you too. I just wanted to get that out of the way, so you don’t have to worry. I like you a lot, and I have for a long time. The first time I saw you, I thought that messing with you was going to be really fucking easy, and that I’d probably do it all the time. And I did, I still do. But the thing is, the first time I saw you, I was angry, I had just been arrested, I was scared, and when I’m scared I lash out. I lashed out that day, and I lashed out the first time I came into work and I lash out a lot, I know that. And I’m sorry. But what I also know about myself, is that I’m a very stereotypical boy. If I like someone, I pull their metaphorical pigtails, if you will. And I’ve been doing that to you for the last seven years, and I just thought you were too nice to let me down, or that you simply didn’t notice.”

“Even if I don’t really buy that last one, since, you know, you’re a profiler. Like you said, you’re trained to notice other people’s behavior. I just thought you were ignoring it, especially when you didn’t tell me to stop with the nicknames. I know I’m annoying. I know I’m loud and weird and that I never stop talking. Not even now, when I’m confessing my undying love to you or whatever we’re going to call it –“ Derek snorted a laugh beside him, and Stiles smiled.

“Not even now, can I just say what I’m going to say and shut up. But I’ll try to get to the point. And the point is, Derek, I love you. I love you as a friend, a colleague, and I don’t know, I might even love you the way Scott will undoubtedly tell Allison he loves her in about three weeks. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m feeling, but I know that I want to find out. And even if I don’t love you, I think that I could, someday. If you’ll let me.”

Derek is silent for a long time, obviously trying to digest the mountain of words and information Stiles had just thrown at him.

“I’ll let you,” Derek said, smiling, and Stiles smiled back.

“Great. But maybe we should wait until I’m out of the hospital?”

“Probably a good idea. And maybe we should wait until you can actually walk, so I don’t have to carry you around.”

“Oh please, I weigh about as much as a wet kitten, don’t tell me you’d have a hard time.”

“Well, no, of course not, but I wouldn’t want to embarrass you.”

Stiles snorted. “Pshh. Please. As if you carrying me around would be embarrassing. It would just show everyone how truly awesome and great my boyfriend is.”

“Boyfriend, huh?”

“Well, future hypothetical boyfriend.”

“That’s more like it.”

* * *

They kept up the banter until Melissa came in with Stiles’ lunch, telling them to stop screwing around, and very sternly telling Stiles that he should get some sleep and that his dad would be landing in about two hours.

Stiles ate his meal quickly and did take Melissa’s advice – or order – to get some sleep. When he thought about it, he was actually pretty beat. Turns out getting kidnapped and psychologically tortured for almost twelve hours and then almost being crushed under tons of concrete really took its toll.

Once he was finished eating, Stiles was out like a light, and didn’t wake up until his dad entered the room. Once his dad had made sure that Stiles was okay, Derek quietly slipped out of the room to take a phone call. When he got back, Stiles looked up expectantly, but Derek shook his head. “They haven’t found him yet.”

Sighing, Stiles went back to assuring his dad that he was okay, and that he didn’t have to worry so much, and that no he was not going to get them cheeseburgers. It was healthy food, or nothing at all. And definitely not anything from the hospital kitchen, have you seen what they serve here? I almost had a heart attack just from looking at it.

* * *

Stiles was in the hospital for four days. It was originally supposed to be just three, but his dad and the doctor agreed that one more day couldn’t hurt, just in case.

So when Stiles finally returned to his apartment, breaking the ‘CRIME SCENE’ tape still covering his door, he was more than done with hospitals. In fact, if he could help it, he never wanted to set foot in a hospital ever again. Sighing, he dropped his bag and keys just inside the door and toed off his shoes. He should into getting another apartment. For now, Stiles didn’t feel much of anything about the place, but he didn’t have to work for the FBI to know that staying in this apartment wouldn’t be good for him.

Theo, Kate, Derek getting attacked, all those memories lingered in the walls. In the floors. In the furniture. He couldn’t stay here. Not for long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](http://illusemywords.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Next chapter on Monday!


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles tried to keep his hands from shaking, tried to take deep breaths. He wondered if Theo would ever stop having that effect on him. He didn’t want the physical reminder every time he thought about what had happened. Wearing the bruises for weeks afterwards had been bad enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are guys, the last chapter. I'll post a shorter epilogue on Thursday and then that's that. This has been an incredible experience for me, and a great way back into fic writing. Before this I hadn't written fic in a while, and I had never written for the teen wolf fandom. The response to this has been more than I ever could have imagined! Thank you.

Stiles moved out of his apartment three weeks later. Most of that time he had spent away from his apartment; at his dad’s hotel room until he eventually went back to Beacon Hills, at Derek’s place, helping him organize his book collection, at Scott’s house, hanging with his dogs.

Generally, he spent as much time as he could keeping busy so he wouldn’t have to go home. He knew that everyone could see right through him, but he didn’t care. He had realized quickly that he needed a new place to live. Really, he didn’t even need the confirmation that came with the constant nightmares he experienced every time he fell asleep in his bedroom to know that. He couldn’t stay in that apartment. And if that meant coming up with flimsier and flimsier excuses to stay away, then so be it. He didn’t care.

So, three weeks later, everything was done. He had cancelled his contract, ended things with his landlord, packed up all his stuff and moved. His new apartment was closer to the office, but not anywhere near the same metro station where he had met Theo. He knew that he couldn’t avoid it forever, he couldn’t keep stepping on eggshells trying to avoid things that reminded him of Theo. But it was still too fresh in his mind for him to try to work on it. He knew he would have to work with a therapist before going back to work, no matter how stupid it seemed.

He couldn’t stay there anymore. So he moved. He moved and he didn’t look back. He put it all behind him, and he went to his mandatory therapy appointments and then he didn’t stop going. He found that talking to someone, especially someone who wasn’t involved in it all, but still someone he didn’t have to keep secrets from, was strangely comfortable.

Life moved on. Theo was nowhere to be found, but Stiles did his best not to think about that. Out of sight, out of mind, isn’t that what they said? The envelopes had, predictably, stopped coming, and now that he was in a new apartment, Stiles felt safer than he had in months. The team wrapped up the Reaper case and turned everything over to the Boston PD. and went back to working on other cases.

Things felt incredibly normal, more normal than he had felt in months. Well, normal considering the kind of work they did. Once Stiles was cleared to go back to work he threw himself in head first, typing and calling and writing and fact checking and tracking people down. Tracking murderers down. Well, everyone but one.

Stiles still had a standing search alert to pick up on anything connected to Theo Raeken or any of his known aliases, but nothing ever came up. That probably wasn’t considered a healthy coping mechanism, and he knew his therapist would agree. As would probably everyone he worked with but, well, what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. And besides, it wasn’t like Stiles didn’t know that they were all still working the case as well. He’d walked into rooms enough times to have various members of his team slamming case files shut or closing windows on their computers to get the picture. They were still working on it, but they were trying to hide it from him. Scared that he’d freak out, maybe, Stiles didn’t know. He didn’t care too much about it.

That is, until one day, Stiles was leaning back in his chair, bored. The team were out on a case. It was local, so they worked from the office, but they were currently all out in the field. They’d be back soon, he expected, though they might also have to meet up with the Virginia PD before coming back to the office.

He was contemplating if maybe he should go get some food, when one of his alarms went off. And not one of his usual ones either. Oh no, this was the alarm he had specifically set to go off if anything new on Theo popped up. Facial recognition software, credit cards, known aliases, basically everything they had that connected Theo to the world. And now it was going off. Which meant there was something new going on. Stiles knew that Theo was way too smart to let something as simple as a credit card or a phone number take him down. Whatever it was, it was probably intentional. Because he knew Stiles would be watching.

Stiles tried to keep his hands from shaking, tried to take deep breaths. He wondered if Theo would ever stop having that effect on him. He didn’t want the physical reminder every time he thought about what had happened. Wearing the bruises for weeks afterwards had been bad enough.

Quickly scanning the program on the screen in front of him, Stiles saw that one of the numbers registered to Theo had been used to send a text message. Immediately, Stiles was typing quickly to get the location and the number he had sent it to and every other information he could possibly get from this one single text message. And then his phone vibrated in his pocket. Stiles froze, his entire body stopping in its tracks except for his hands, which started shaking even harder.

Slowly, making sure his fingers held his phone firmly, he pulled it out of his pocket and stared at the screen. One message, from an unknown number that Stiles easily recognized.

‘Come alone’ it read, nothing else. So Theo knew that he had been keeping track on him. Or, he at least counted on Stiles tracking down the number and figuring out where he was texting from. He probably knew that the team was out in the field too. It wouldn’t surprise Stiles if Theo was keeping track of all of them some way or another. He knew going to meet him would probably be the stupidest thing he could ever do, but at the same time, he didn’t want to risk Theo getting away again if he tried to bring someone else in. Nodding to himself, Stiles decided what to do.

* * *

Stiles had tracked the cellphone signal to the park they had gone to after their first date. The park was large, but he felt certain that he knew where he was going. And sure enough, once he approached the bench they had sat at together, he saw there was another person sitting there, wearing dark clothes and a hoodie. If Stiles hadn’t been looking for him, he might not even have noticed someone sitting there. He also knew that once he sat down, he would be just as hard to spot in his loose, dark blue hoodie and black jeans.

He sighed heavily before making his way over, sitting down next to Theo and pushing his hands deep in his pockets. His hands were steady, for now, but cold and stiff. He wanted to go home. He wanted to forget Theo existed. He wanted to see him stuck in a tiny cell for the rest of his life. He wanted him to suffer. He didn’t say any of this.

Instead, he sighed again and turned his head. “Hello, Theo,” Stiles said, just barely making out his face underneath the hoodie. Theo was smiling.

“Are you wearing a wire?” Theo asked, cocking his head to the side, still smiling.

Stiles snorted and rolled his eyes, annoyed at the question. “Do you think I’m stupid?” he spat. “Of course I’m not wearing a wire. I don’t want to die, do I?”

Theo smiled wider. “Just checking,” he said before falling silent. They sat in silence for a few minutes, Stiles watching his foggy breath fan out in front of him before disappearing into the dark night surrounding them.

“Why did you want me to find you, Theo?” Stiles asked eventually, breaking the heavy silence between them.

Theo didn’t answer at first, and Stiles began to wonder if he hadn’t heard him. Stiles was opening his mouth to repeat himself when Theo finally spoke.

“I wanted to say goodbye,” he said, not looking at Stiles.

“Goodbye?” Stiles frowned. “Why are you saying goodbye?”

“Well, I don’t really have anyone else in my life, and despite what you may think, I did care about you. That wasn’t a lie. At least, it didn’t end like that. At the start I may have just wanted to keep an eye on the FBI, and on you. But you fascinate me, Stiles. You always have. And I love you, Stiles, more than I’ve ever loved anyone, and I wanted to tell you that. I just wanted you to know that.”

He fell silent again, and Stiles tried very hard not to sigh. He just wanted this meeting over with so he could go on with his life.

“I’m leaving the country,” Theo continued after some time. “I can’t tell you where I’m going, obviously, but you won’t see me again.” Thank god, Stiles thought silently, but he didn’t say anything. Theo got up and turned back to look at Stiles one final time. “So, like I said, I just wanted to say goodbye. It’s been nice seeing you.”

“I wish I could say the same,” Stiles said, too tired of Theo’s bullshit to keep up his complacent act. Theo didn’t say anything, just smiled again. His hand twitched at his side and Stiles was scared for a second that he was going to try and touch him, but he turned away instead, and started moving deeper into the park. That’s when Stiles gave the signal, a quick hand gesture that had agents moving in from all sides. Theo stopped abruptly and turned back, throwing an absolutely betrayed look at Stiles. His arms were quickly pinned behind his back and he was lead away towards where Stiles knew the cars were waiting.

As they passed Stiles, he motioned for the officers to stop for a second. He stepped closer to Theo and looked him in the eye as he spoke. “Like I told you, Theo, I’m not stupid. And if you really thought I was going to come meet you without bringing backup, you really aren’t the evil mastermind everyone thinks you are.”

Theo smiled again, making Stiles feel queasy. “I’m impressed; I’ll say that much. I didn’t think you’d have the balls to actually tell someone. Aren’t you scared I’m going to send someone to finish you off?”

“Not particularly. Frankly, I don’t think you’d want anyone else to do the job.”

That shut Theo up, and he looked annoyed that Stiles managed to figure him out.

“And Theo? You never loved me. You were just obsessed with me. That’s not the same as love. I hope I never have to see you again.”

With those final words, Stiles turned around and let the officers lead Theo away. It was over. It was finally over. He couldn’t believe it. Theo was finally in custody, and he was being sent off to a high security jail where he wouldn’t be let out of sight for the rest of his life.

The families of everyone he killed, and the families of everyone Gerard killed, could hopefully finally find some peace. Stiles himself, could finally move on. He could finally be with Derek, whom he had been afraid of touching while Theo was still out there.

Walking off in direction of the cars, once he was sure Theo would be locked in somewhere, Stiles found Derek, who was leaning against the side of one of the SUVs. Once he saw Stiles approaching, he pushed himself off the car and walked swiftly over to him, grabbing him gently by the shoulders and looked him up and down. “Did he touch you?” Derek asked, and Stiles shook his head, stepping into Derek’s arms and letting them embrace him.

It felt good to be surrounded by Derek’s strong arms, feeling the warmth of him all around. For the first time since he had found out who Theo really was, he felt safe. He felt at ease. He just stood there, for an undeterminable amount of time, letting Derek hold him and whisper soothing nonsense into his ear.

“It’s over,” he said finally, looking up at Derek with a small smile on his lips. “I can’t believe it’s finally over.”

Derek pressed a small kiss to the side of Stiles’ head, hiding his own smile. “It is,” he said. “It’s over.”

“Does that mean we can finally go out?” Stiles whispered into Derek’s shirt, desperately trying to hide his grin from Derek.

Derek laughed, the sound bellowing through the ear. Stiles could feel the force of it vibrating through Derek’s chest.

“Yes, I suppose it does. As long as you still want to. At least now he can’t hurt you anymore.”

Stiles nodded against Derek. “I know. I’m glad. I’m sorry I made you wait for me, but I just didn’t feel safe while he was still out there. I didn’t want to put you in unnecessary danger if I could avoid it.”

“I totally understand. Don’t worry about it. I probably would have done the same thing. But now it’s over, finally. I’m so sorry you had to go through all that.”

“It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but Theo. And Gerard. He was the one to start all this in the first place.” Stiles spoke the words but didn’t fully believe them. He thought that, no matter what, he would always feel like it was somehow his fault. Just like he did with his mother’s death. Like maybe, if he had just been better somehow, or smarter, or something else, he could have avoided this entire thing with Theo.

But he didn’t want to think about that, not now, when he and Derek finally had a shot together. When they could finally go out. He knew, that more than anything, he didn’t want to ruin that.

“So,” Stiles continued, smirking to remove some of the tension. “My place, or yours?” Derek laughed.

“Yours,” he said. “I still haven’t seen your new apartment.”

Stiles’ smile faltered slightly at the silent reminder that he had moved; that he had all but been forced to move. He tried to hid it, but Derek caught it anyway. Damn profilers.

“Hey,” he said gently. “We don’t have to do this now if you don’t want to. Hell, we don’t have to do it at all if you’re not sure that you want this.” Stiles hated how considerate Derek was.

Stiles shook his head. “No, no, I want to. It’s just. I don’t know. But I want you to come over. Maybe we can just sleep? If that’s okay with you?” Stiles bit his lip, feeling so damn insecure all of a sudden, until Derek smiled at him and replaced his feelings of insecurity with warmth and happiness. God. He was so in love with this man, it was ridiculous.

“Of course that’s okay. As long as I get to spend time with you, anything is okay. I hope you know that.”

Stiles nodded and smiled shyly. “I do. I do know that.”

“Good,” Derek said, taking Stiles’ hand. “Now let’s go back to your place.”

“Yes, that sounds perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed reading! As always, you can find me on [tumblr](http://illusemywords.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Thank you to everyone who read, kudo'd and commented on this fic. 
> 
> Come back on Thursday for the epilogue!


	18. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You can do this, Stiles,” Derek whispered reassuringly as he straightened his tie for him. “And remember, we’re all right there. You don’t have to look at him, just look at me, okay?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so here we are - the epilogue. This is kind of short, I know, but I just wanted to add a few scenes of what happened after Theo was caught - some cute some serious. I hope you enjoy it.

“Stiles, you’re on speaker, behave.”

Stiles smirked. “What are you going to do? Spank me?” he said, before realizing what he had said and immediately kicking himself mentally. Thank god there wasn’t anyone else in the office to see his face redden up like a tomato.

There was a small groan from the other side and what sounded like someone, probably Scott or Derek, hitting themselves in the face in annoyance.

Stiles cleared his throat. “Um, sorry. So. Yes, I have some information for you. I didn’t find anything in the unsubs credit card bills, but there have been regular cash withdrawals made from his ex wife’s account, ranging from one thousand to five thousand dollars, always from the same ATM, so I’m guessing that either they’ve rekindled their relationship through serial murder and all that goodness, or she’s being blackmailed or manipulated into helping him.”

“Sounds about right. He might even be staying with her, or she could know where to find him. Thanks, Stiles, keep us updated.”

“No problem, babe,” Stiles answered, just to heard Derek groan again.

“Gross, don’t call me babe.”

Stiles was just about to reply when Scott’s voice came through. “Guys, not on the job. Be gross and couple-y on your own time.”

Stiles scoffed. “Like you have anything to say in this, Scott, you text Allison every ten minutes.”

“Whatever,” Scott said, and Stiles could hear him rolling his eyes. He could picture it as clear as day, having seen it on multiple occasions. Often several times a day.

“Alright, enough,” Derek said, and Stiles was sure he was rolling his eyes at the both of them.

“Okay, babe, good luck and be safe. That goes for all of you,” Stiles said, hanging up before anyone, especially Derek, could protest the pet name. He loved annoying Derek with his pet names.

* * *

“I’m not sure I can do it,” Stiles whispered into Derek’s skin in the darkness of Derek’s bedroom.

Theo’s trial was about to start, both for all the murders he had committed and for kidnapping and assault. And Stiles was terrified. He was going to have to testify, and was going to have to tell the court everything. Not just what had happened when he was kidnapped, but all the intimate details of their relationship, every date, every text, every phone call.

Did he ever suspect that something might be wrong? Did Theo ever ask for case details? Did Stiles ever give them to him? Did he ever talk about his work? Did he suspect that there might be any connection between Theo and the Reaper case.

And Stiles was going to have to answer all of it.

“I – I just –” Stiles struggled to find the right words to express what he was feeling. He didn’t even know if Derek was awake, but it felt important that he get this out. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to sit in a room with him and talk about everything he did. I mean, what if they ask me something I can’t answer. What if they aren’t satisfied with my answers? What if they want to call me back in? What if I have to go up there twice, oh god, Derek –” His voice hitched.

Derek’s arms suddenly tightened around his shoulders, pulling him closer to the warm heat that was his body. “Shh, Stiles, calm down,” Derek said, voice soft and soothing. “Everything is going to be alright. I’ll be there with you; we’ll all be there, the entire team. He can’t hurt you anymore, Stiles, I promise.”

Stiles shut his eyes tightly against the onslaught of emotions he was suddenly feeling all at once. Shutting out the fear, the anger and the pain he was feeling he focused instead on keeping his breathing as steady as possible.

“Thank you,” he whispered after a few more minutes of quiet breathing, still not looking up from where he had buried his face against Derek’s shoulder. Derek didn’t let go of him, just kept holding him tightly.

“You should try getting some sleep,” he said, and Stiles nodded silently, letting his exhaustion weigh him down until his breathing evened out as he fell asleep.

* * *

“You can do this, Stiles,” Derek whispered reassuringly as he straightened his tie for him. “And remember, we’re all right there. You don’t have to look at him, just look at me, okay?”

Stiles nodded, throat too tight to actually reply.

“The prosecution calls Miroslaw Stilinski as a witness.”

He didn’t register the prosecution calling him to the witness stand, but Derek gave his shoulder a squeeze and whispered in his ear. “That’s you, Stiles, you have to go.”

Stiles nodded again, getting up and moving stiffly over to the witness box where the bailiff recited the oath. “I do,” Stiles said before sitting down and putting his hands in his lap.

Stiles’ eyes briefly caught Theo’s where he was sitting in front of him, wearing bright orange overalls and smiling. It creeped Stiles out, which was probably Theo’s intention. Stiles held his gaze for another second before tearing himself away and finding Derek’s instead. Derek was also smiling, but it was much softer and supportive, where Theo’s had been excited and manipulative.

Stiles took a deep breath and mentally prepared himself for the questions he knew he would have to answer. After all, all he had to do was tell the truth.

* * *

Theo pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but was ruled fit to stand trial. He was found guilty in murdering at least three people on his own, along with the possible murder of several homeless people in the Boston area. He was also convicted for kidnapping and assaulting Stiles, as well as for attempted murder.

The final sentence was 25 years to life.

Kate was caught and sentenced for accessory to kidnapping and obstruction of justice. She got 15 years in prison.

A knot Stiles hadn’t realized was sitting in his stomach suddenly untangled. A weight lifted off his shoulders, leaving him feeling tons lighter all of a sudden.

Until now, he hadn’t really allowed himself to hope that it all might actually turn out okay. He had always been scared that no matter the evidence, no matter how strong the witness testimonies were, Theo would somehow still get away with it all. But he hadn’t. And now he was going away, and Stiles never had to see him again.

Stiles buried his face in the crook of Derek’s neck and allowed himself to breathe deeply and freely for what felt like the first time in years. They were going to be okay.

* * *

“Wait, wait, wait, how did you meet this guy again?” Stiles interrupted Erica, who was in the middle of telling them all about a date she had gone on with some other FBI agent named Boyd. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the music playing from speakers on the walls.

After work, Stiles, Lydia, Erica, Kira and Scott had gone out together to one of the many bars located in the area around their office. Deaton had politely declined their invitation, and Derek had just shaken his head, kissed Stiles on the cheek and told him he would see him at home. Which prompted a round of awing from Kira and Scott.

Currently, Scott and Kira were off dancing together, and Lydia was standing a few tables over involved in a very passionate discussion about… something. He had heard something about nuclear physics and immediately zoned out.

So that left Stiles and Erica sitting at their table talking, each with a beer in hand. Erica paused to take a long sip from her bottle before letting it fall back to the table with a thud. “Um,” she said, clearly hesitating. “I actually met him when we were looking for you,” she admitted. “He was the first agent to arrive at your apartment after Derek called in saying he was worried about you.”

“Oh,” Stiles responded, taking a slow drink of his own beer.

“I don’t mean – we didn’t – ugh. I didn’t ask him out then. I wouldn’t do that, you know that right?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Stiles reassured her, nodding rapidly. “I didn’t think that.”

Erica looked relieved, a small smile pulling at her lips. “Good.”

“So, sorry, I interrupted you, that was totally rude of me,” Stiles said, waving his arms as a gesture for Erica to continue, hoping to get away from the topic of exactly why there had been FBI agents in his old apartment.

“Oh, yeah, so, I ran into him like, two weeks ago, when I was down on the fifth floor, and well, we kind of decided to go out. We’re going out again next week.”

Erica stopped talking to take another sip of her beer.

“I’m happy for you,” Stiles said, smiling.

* * *

“Okay,” Stiles said, taking a deep breath as he grabbed Derek’s hand and tugged him after him. “Dad, this is Derek, and Derek, this is my dad, Sheriff John Stilinski.”

Stiles’ dad and Derek both looked at him with an equally amused look. “You know we’ve met before, right?” John said as Derek rolled his eyes at his boyfriend’s formality.

Stiles shot his dad an incredulous look. “Yes, dad, of course I know that. But you haven’t met him since we started dating, and I didn’t want to deprive you of the chance to have the ‘I carry a gun and if you hurt my son I’ll shoot you’ talk. Even though Derek also carries a gun. And so does Scott. And everyone I work with basically.”

This time it was John’s turn to roll his eyes. “Oh, well in _that_ case. It’s nice to meet you Derek,” he said, going along with Stiles’ game. “I carry a gun, and if you hurt my son, I’ll shoot you.”

“Noted,” Derek said with a nod, trying to keep himself from smiling.

“Great, now that that’s over with, let’s go get dinner,” Stiles said, grinning, excited to spend an evening back in his hometown, with two of the most important people in his life.

* * *

The next morning, Stiles brought Derek to the Beacon Hills cemetery, a bouquet of colorful flowers clutched in his hand.

“Mom,” Stiles said, kneeling down in the damp grass that covered his mom’s grave. “This is Derek.” He put the flowers down and reached up to intertwine his fingers with Derek’s. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to meet him, but I think you would have liked him.”

“He has a horrible sense of humor, but he still laughs at my jokes. He loves Indian food, and reading, and he doesn’t complain when I take too long in the shower. He’s saved my life, more than once, and I don’t think he plans on stopping anytime soon. I –“ Stiles felt his throat closing up as he tried to get the words out. Tears blurred his eyes as he reached out with his free hand to trace the letters engraved into cold gravestone in front of him.

“I love him,” he finally forced out, a few tears dripping from the corner of his eyes. Looking up, Stiles found Derek smiling sadly down at him.

“Yeah, you definitely would have liked him,” he decided, voice thick with tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the end. I'd like to give a final thanks to everyone who read, kudo'd and commented on this. And to those of you who comment on every or several chapter - I see you, thank you, you've all made this a great experience for me. I never could have imagined the response I've got from this! 
> 
> I don't know if I'll ever come back and write more in this verse, but for now I'll put the series as complete.
> 
> If you're interested in seeing more of my writing, please do subscribe to my ao3 account or come talk to me on [tumblr](http://illusemywords.tumblr.com/). I have a few new stories that I'm working on that I hope to start posting in not too long.


End file.
